Loose Ends
by berrywarbler
Summary: Rachel Berry would never get to be a star, but how is the rest of the group supposed to take this? disclaimer: death!fic. Suicide. I am so sorry in advance.
1. Rachel

"Are you really going to go through with this Rachel?" she asked herself aloud, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She knew she was going to, had thought about almost nothing besides this for what felt like an eternity now, the planning taking over her entire brain the past few weeks. She was still trying to be the same Rachel Berry at school-demanding, loud, opinionated, the 'future star' of McKinley. But she knew in her head and her heart that it wasn't who she was.

That she wasn't going to make it that far.

That she wasn't supposed to even make it out of high school.

She nodded now, feeling more confident and more like the Rachel Berry she used to be as she looked at the assortment of pills in front of her. She had taken an assortment of her own pills, pills her fathers took, a couple she knicked out of Quinn's bag a week ago during a late Glee rehearsal. She smiled fondly, almost at ease as she picked up a handful, swallowing them one by one and taking large gulps of the vodka she had in a glass next to her. It took her a few minutes to get them all down, and when she did she could feel some of them hitting her-she was getting dizzy, lightheaded, like she needed to lay down. _Perfect_, she thought, closing her eyes and resting her head against the cold glass of the mirror for a minute, waiting for the pills to settle before moving onto the next part of her plan.

She didn't want to risk that it wouldn't work, after all. If she was going to do this-this _suicide_, it wasn't going to be an attempt.

It was going to be an accomplishment.

She turned slowly, feeling a little more sluggish than normal as she flipped the tap on for the bathtub, the water so hot she knew it was scald her skin. Still, that pain was nothing to what she was going to feel once she got in, and she settled in fully dressed while it filled around her, giggling slightly as she poured shampoo into the tub to make bubbles. _It's pretty_, she thought, watching them rise higher and higher as her fingers grazed the knife she had grabbed from the butchers block in their kitchen on her way upstairs.

The knife she had started grabbing on her way upstairs more often the past few months.

The first time it had happened was an accident-it slipped through her hands and cut her leg, and she was surprised at how it felt. The pain was obvious-you cut yourself open, you're going to be in pain. But the weird satisfaction she felt at it, the weird feeling of _ease_ and _contentment_ she had felt with it-well, that wasn't something she had ever expected to feel. Cutting was for people with serious problems, for those who didn't feel anything else throughout their days. Cutting was not something Rachel Berry needed to resort too-not these days, with her perfect boyfriend and her talented voice and her intelligence carrying her to the world beyond Lima, Ohio.

But she was always up for trying anything once.

Originally she had only meant for it to be once. But then she had a horrible day-Finn and her got into a fight, she was denied another solo for the underclassmen in Glee, she got a C- on a test, and she vaguely knew that these were trivial things, that these were surface pains, but they hurt nonetheless. And emotional pain was not something Rachel had ever learned to deal with, her fathers sending her to a therapist anytime anything seemed remotely distressing, glossing over almost any situation in their house. So when she walked through her kitchen and saw the knives sitting there, it was almost instinct to grab one and run into the bathroom.

She didn't want to do it where anyone would see it, didn't want anyone panicking and worrying about her-there wasn't anything really _wrong_, this was just to take away from the emotional pain a little, the physical pain outweighing it as she sliced a line on her side, just above her hip. She grimaced, the knife clattering to the floor as she squeezed the spot tightly, the pain almost too much as she leaned against the counter. But underneath the pain, despite the blood that was now staining one of her favorite skirts as it dripped down her body slowly, there was a sense of accomplishment, a sense of comfort. The pain was certainly first and foremost, but it distracted her from getting too lost in her own thoughts-which was it's original intent.

It was painful, but in the best way.

It wasn't too long before it became almost a reflex. Emotional pain bottled up, the knife against her skin took it away, distracted her and got her out of her head. She'd watch her skin scab and heal over and then cut it again, almost in awe every time she did it again. She was vaguely aware she was falling into a pit she wasn't sure she could climb out of. Aware that when the blood was cleaned up, wincing anytime fabric touched new cuts, the emotions that drove her to do this would rise again, making her feel even worse than before.

She played with the knife now, looking at it as if it was an old familiar friend. In a way it was, it was the worst kind of friend. The kind that hurt you over and over, the kind you just couldn't let go of. She only had so much time before she could put the next part into action, and this part she had been sure to research properly. This was the part that she couldn't mess up, because this was what was really going to do her in. The pills, the alcohol, that was a side show, an appetizer. She was going to finish this the only way she really trusted, the only way she felt she really knew how.

The tub was full now, and she absent mindedly turned the tap off with her toes, not bothering to lean over and shut it off. Her sweater and skirt were heavy anyways, she wasn't entirely sure she could move more than her arms. Her eyes fluttered, trying to close and give in to the various effects of the pills-she was starting to feel nauseous now, but she commanded her body to stop, reminding it that it would all be over soon.

She pointed the edge of the knife at the center of her left wrist, staring at the blue vein pulsing blood underneath her skin. With a sad smile, she pushed it deeper, wincing deeply as she dragged it down her arm, tears starting to crash into the bathroom as the blood-a bright, startling red-started to pulse out, almost in rhythem of her heartbeat. She quickly did the same to her other wrist before she lost complete use of her hands, the knife clattering to the floor beside the tub, sobbing as the pain washed over her. Her arms sank into the tub, the water now turning just as red as the blood that was leaving her body, and she panicked. It was only natural to decide after you go through with your plan that it wasn't what you wanted, and for a second she glimpsed the future she used to see-her on a stage in a beautiful Valentino gown, accepting her Tony Award, Finn and Kurt in the audience cheering her on. It was something she hadn't seen in months, lost beneath layers of stress and pain that she had let pile up on top of her. As her eyes closed, the painkillers and sleeping pills and anti-depressants warring in her system, in what was left of her blood stream, she felt the dry heaves that wracked her body now.

_It wasn't supposed to be like this_, she thought, trying to ignore the fact that her body was starting to feel weightless, out of her control. She realized she was actually _dying_ now, and it was terrifying in a way she hadn't accounted for. Cutting, planning a suicide-she wasn't stupid, she knew what it was for, but the actual act seemed so much greater and far more emotionally shattering than she had previously thought. The act of dying, in her bathtub bleeding out while various substances irreversibly damaged her insides, it was so simple and so overwhelming at the same time.

She tried moving her arms, tried seeing if she could move, the notion of maybe getting out and crawling to a phone, calling for help washing over her and escaping before she realized that she couldn't go anywhere, didn't really want to go anywhere. _This is how it's supposed to be_, she reminded herself. _You're not made for the real world. You can't even handle high school. _

Her friends faces flashed across her mind, slowly, flickering in and out like they were bad reception on a cell phone. Finn, Kurt, Mercedes, Puck-even Mike and Santana. She wondered if they would be upset, hoping that those she had left a letter to would find them, sure that if Quinn was allowed in her room she would snoop them out for the group. She knew her dads would find theirs, left on their pillow. Guilt took over as she realized this is what they'd come home to, this is what they'd see when they came looking for their daughter. But emotions and thoughts were fading just as much as physical feeling was, even the throbbing from the cuts was dulling now. _So close_, she thought, her body sinking slightly into the water, her breathing becoming more and more labored. There was more time spent not breathing before her chest seemed to heave, trying to remember it was something she was supposed to be doing. She mentally told it to relax, to stop, that it was all over now.

The last thing she was able to think before the blackness swept over, the pills and the alcohol and the knife finally succeeding in their job was _I'll never get to be a star_.


	2. Finn

Finn barely resisted the urge to punch Burt in the face as the words came out.

"Rachel's dead," he told the three boys who were watching a game on the TV, and it took both Kurt and Blaine to restrain Finn as he wiggled around, trying to free himself from their grasp.

"Let me go!" He yelled, and when they finally did he stormed out of the room, kicking a stool over as he grabbed his keys and took off.

No one stopped him.

No one could have.

The ride to Rachel's was familiar in that he knew exactly where to go, but his mind was too busy to notice. He was half surprised he didn't get into an accident on the icy roads, less surprised that a part of him wanted to. But he refused to believe what Burt had told them until he saw it for himself. He would knock on her door and she would answer, looking annoyed and disgruntled that he was distracting from her afternoon of practicing solos. That he was being nice after everything he had told her that night. That he was there at all.

But when he pulled on her street, his stomach dropped. The image of the petite brunette answering the door with a hostile expression vanished as he crept forward, parking a few houses down and getting out into the cold-he wasn't wearing a jacket, left in such a frenzy that he forgot it. He joined the crowd and spotted her fathers-one was crying, the other talking to a police officer. He saw them carrying a body bag out of the house, and his anger instantly dissolved into tears.

It was true.

Rachel was dead.

* * *

><p>The shock was almost enough to send him home. Instead he pushed forward, not even apologizing as he knocked into people, clearing the yard in no time as he got to the front porch. One of her dads, he could never remember which was which, pulled him in for a hug.<p>

He stayed with them for awhile, feeling numb and in a daze. At some point Kurt had arrived, Finn wasn't exactly sure when he had taken his place next to him on the couch, but he was grateful for it. Their friends trickled in and out throughout the evening, and Finn couldn't understand why they were giving sympathy to him. He wasn't Rachel's boyfriend anymore, they weren't even friends. He had made sure of that the last time they broke up. Made sure to distance himself as much as possible from her.

He thought it would be better for both of them this way. Clearly, he had been wrong. Again.

Kurt half dragged him to Finn's car, demanding he get in the passenger seat. Finn made no argument, didn't even question how Kurt had gotten there or when he had gotten the keys from Finn. Finn didn't say anything at all.

Couldn't say anything at all.

It was just so fucked up to him, that this girl he had loved and admired and envied was gone. That this person who had become such a vital part of his everyday life would no longer be in it. He would never see her star in a Broadway play, never explain the things he said were just to push her away-to push her towards her dreams. That he was worried she would stay in Ohio for him, and she deserved New York and fame.

And now she'd get none of that. She got no explanation, no adoring fans. She was dead. And there was nothing Finn could do to fix that.

* * *

><p>Finn didn't leave his room for three days. His mom or Kurt would bring him food, and he'd let it sit there until they came to take it away. They urged him to eat, to get up, to do something. But why should he? If Rachel wasn't going to do anything anymore, if the strongest person he knew had given up, why couldn't he?<p>

He only showered and dressed on the fourth day because Kurt had informed him he didn't have a choice. "Funeral," he reminded him, and Finn nodded. He remembered them talking about it when they walked past his room one day, but he hadn't realized it would be so soon.

"Don't leave me," he whispered to Kurt when they got there, grabbing his hand for support. Blaine came and sat with them, and Finn noticed Kurt grabbing Blaine's hand with his free one. He didn't care for once if people said he was a fag for sitting with them, didn't care if they called him queer for holding Kurt's hand. He was upset and unstable and unsure he would make it through this. He wanted his brother next to him.

He made it through the service without crying, Kurt had his face on Blaine's shoulder and he suspected he was crying. Finn felt remorse that this was now the second funeral Kurt would have to sit through, and with a glance Blaine let him know he was thinking the same. Finn was grateful that at least he would never remember his dad's funeral. The empty feeling that Burt had almost completely filled was widening though, and Finn wasn't sure it would ever close again.

* * *

><p>His mom tried to make him go to school the following Monday. "You can't lay around forever Finn, you still have your life to worry about," she told him when he replied that he didn't want to. He rolled over at her words, surprised at the sting he felt when he realized he did still have his life to lead, that he had all this time in front of him that Rachel never would.<p>

Kurt came in a few minutes later, sitting on the edge of Finn's bed. Finn didn't respond, just waited for Kurt to say what he had to say so that he could reject it and go back to staring at his ceiling.

"I know you're upset," he told him quietly. "But, she wouldn't have wanted you to waste your own life away."

"How do you know? How does anyone know what she would have wanted? Clearly we didn't, or we would have been able to stop her," Finn snarled, glaring at his brother.

"Rachel-what she did was weak Finn, but you know as well as I do that once the idea was in her head-I'm not sure anyone could have talked her out of it. And I wish as much as you do that she had come to one of us, but we can't change the past now."

"Well, I don't care about the future either."

"Finn," Kurt tried, and Finn sat up, feeling slightly dizzy as he did so quickly.

"No, Kurt, no. Don't you see? This is all my fault. I was the one who broke her, who broke up with her because I thought it was for the best. And I _knew _she was handling it weirdly well, but I didn't think she was secretly that torn up about it! And now she's gone, and I'll never get to apologize for telling her I didn't love her when I do. I told her I was never going to be with her again, to get the idea of us being a couple anymore out of her head, to move on with her life because I was done with her. And then, a month later, she does _this_? No. I get to mope and mourn more than the rest, because I just lost the girl I was sure I was going to end up marrying one day, after she was a famous Broadway star. I lost the girl I thought I was going to be with forever," Finn ranted, letting out the words he had spent the past week burying away.

It was all his fault.

He was the one who destroyed Rachel Berry.

* * *

><p>Tuesday it was Burt who came up to tell Finn it was time to go back to school. "Listen, kid, I know you're hurting-it sucks, and you loved her and she just abandoned you. But you gotta go to school. Your mom-well she's worried, and you know how she gets when she's worried."<p>

"I don't want to go back," Finn mumbled into his pillow. Burt sighed, and Finn was sure he had left the room again, and nearly jumped when Burt started talking again.

"I won't lie to you kiddo, it's going to suck. Walking through those halls and seeing her locker and being in that damn choir room-it's going to damn near break you when you think about how she isn't there anymore. But you'll get through it. It might take years, it might take decades. Look at your mom and me, look how long it took us to find each other, to feel even almost whole again." Finn glanced at Burt, aware that this was more talking than he normally did, aware that Burt would have never told him things like this if it wasn't for the shit circumstances. "Just, go today. If you can't make it through the day, we'll give you a couple more freebie days. But you gotta go today."

Finn nodded, getting out of the bed. He gave a small smile to Burt, who smiled back and patted him on the back before leaving the room.

* * *

><p>Finn knew school would suck as soon as he arrived.<p>

"I don't want to go in," He told Kurt, who was watching him apprehensively.

"You can't avoid it forever," Kurt told him.

"I could go to Dalton," Finn suggested, and Blaine snorted from Kurt's other side-he always seemed to pop up randomly.

"Trust me, hiding out at Dalton isn't the answer."

"If you say any variation of the word 'courage', I may punch you in the face." Blaine cracked a grin at him but kept silent, starting to head towards the doors.

"Coming?" he called back to Kurt, and Finn nodded, the three of them heading inside.

* * *

><p>Walking in the hallways was bad enough, walking past her locker was heartbreaking-people had left notes on it, a little memorial almost for her. He wanted to scoff, aside from Glee club and maybe one or two others, no one had noticed her, no one had cared. No one had thought to get to know the beautiful and talented girl that was almost too abrasive for her own good.<p>

No one cared about a person until they were dead.

But he walked by, steadily avoiding glancing at it after the first initial shock wore off. He went to his classes, barely paying attention. Mr. Schuester asked him if he was going to attend Glee that afternoon, saying that it was good enough to see him back in classes but he understood. Kurt was his ride home though, and Kurt had already said he was staying for Glee. He said it was an important meeting and that Finn was going to go too, whether he liked it or not.

He didn't like it.

He didn't want to be in Glee anymore.

He wanted to quit, to try out for wrestling or something that involved _fighting _and moving his limbs and getting the wind knocked out of him. He wanted to do something more _physical_, because basketball wasn't ever going to be enough. He wished football was still going on, that he could run across a field and play a scrimmage with Puck and Chang, but the three feet of snow on the ground said that probably wasn't the best idea.

So instead he found himself sitting in the choir room, Blaine on one side of him and Quinn on the other as Mr. Schue called everyones attention. Not that he had needed to, the room was virtually silent anyways.

"I know that without Rachel here, we're going to have a harder time at Regionals-" he started, and Finn let out a hollow laugh, not trying to hide it. Everyone turned to look at him and even Mr. Schuester stopped talking, something Finn had rarely seen him do. "Is something wrong Finn?" he asked, and Finn let out another empty laugh, more like he was pushing out spare air than actually laughing.

"No, of course not. Someone in our group _killed themselves_, but let's continue to get ready for Regional's. Who'll take Rachel's place for the solo? Mercedes? Quinn? Kurt? How about the duet? Who's going to do that? I mean, I can't suggest Rachel and I do it-that'd be fucked up. But Regionals is only two weeks away guys! We can take this!" Finn ranted, and Kurt stood up in the front of the group, glaring at Mr. Schuester who had looked like he was ready to talk back.

"Finn, I know you've been gone, and I _know _I've told you in your absence that we decided to carry on, to work for what we've been working towards for the past two and a half years. It's what Rachel would have wanted."

"You keep saying that, but how do you know? Maybe she wanted us to fail. Maybe that was her last big joke-'ha! Look! You guys _suck _without me! Bet you wish you had appreciated me while I was there!'" Finn retorted.

"Because she wrote us all letters Finn. One of her dads brought them to me last week, and I was waiting to hand the rest of them out until you came back," Kurt replied simply. The rest of the group looked apprehensive, glancing at the envelopes Kurt withdrew from his backpack and started passing out.

Finn took his, and noticed that while some had ripped theirs open, a few were putting them away to read later.

Finn threw his in his book bag.

Nothing she could have said would make it better.


	3. Kurt

Kurt had to be strong. Not for himself, because he would have loved nothing more than to curl up into a ball and have his dad rub his back and tell him it'd all be okay like he did after his mom died, but for Finn. They couldn't both break down, not right now. So Kurt sucked it up and put on a brave face and comforted his brother because he knew there was nothing more he could do at the moment.

It sucked so bad to have to be the strong one, to see all his friends crying while he refused to let himself. At first, when his dad told them, he had been in too much shock to feel anything. His reaction was immediately "take care of Finn" because Finn was spiraling so out of control that someone had too. Even after he left and his dad said "You okay kiddo?", all he could do was nod.

Those first few hours he was completely numb.

Blaine offered to bring him to Rachel's, both knowing Finn wouldn't be in any condition to drive home-he wasn't in any condition to drive right now, when reality set in it was sure to be worse. The only thing Blaine said on the drive over was "Are you sure you're okay?" and almost like a reflex Kurt automatically said "Yes," something he was far too used to responding with. But he had finally been meaning it, finally been happy for the first time in a very, very long time. There had been no bullying, he had a fantastic boyfriend who loved him, he had a family again, he had friends.

He had a best friend.

And then she died.

He tried not to blame himself, because in the back of his mind he knew it wasn't his fault, there was nothing he could have done. He had hung out with Rachel all the time and she hadn't even seemed slightly upset, which Kurt should have thought was weird in the first place. But he was happy, and he thought Rachel was happy, so they plotted their escape out of Lima and sang duets and he tried to show her there was other fashion besides "grandma-toddler-librarian-chic."

If she had only come to him with what she was feeling, he could have saved them both.

* * *

><p>He didn't have the same luxury as Finn to stay home and mourn, he was trying to be strong. He was thrown back into the halls of McKinley the next day, half of the students unaware that anything had even happened until Principal Figgens made an announcement and held a moment of silence during third period.<p>

They all went to Glee club after school almost as an automatic thing. They left a chair free in the front and center without meaning to, their eyes all drawn towards it as they realized Rachel was never again going to interrupt and demand solo's and basically try and run the club herself. Mr. Schuester tried to distract them all, but they all just kind of sat there feeling lost. Kurt could hear Tina crying, and Blaine was looking more upset now that the initial shock had set off. Kurt felt a horrible knot form in his stomach, mouthing a 'we need to talk' at Blaine while Mr. Schuester tried, unsuccessfully, to distract the group.  
>They all filed out after a half hour, Quinn running off set their own need to depart, and Blaine grabbed Kurt's hand as they walked towards Kurt's locker so he could grab his jacket.<p>

"What's up?" Blaine asked as he put his own on, buttoning it up to fend the snow that was piling up once more outside.

Kurt took a deep breath, rushing the words "I think we need to break up," out. Blaine stood there, stunned into silence.

"No," he said finally, and now Kurt was quiet. "No, I won't let you push me away."

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are. I can tell because you're eyes are all wide and anime like."

"Blaine, I told you to stop mentioning things like that in public, unless you're talking to Artie," Kurt sighed. "Regardless, that's not how a break up works. One person wants to break up, you break up."

"Not when said person is having a breakdown because one of their friends died and it's too familiar to their mom's death," Blaine countered.

"Blaine, it's not like that-"

"Yes, its exactly like that. And do you think breaking up with me and pushing me aside is going to make things better? Are you forgetting that she was my friend too? Maybe I want to lean on you as much as you're terrified to lean on me."

"Blaine-"

"No, end of discussion. Now, do you want me to come over?" Kurt hesitated before shaking his head 'no'.

"I need to make sure Finn is okay," Kurt responded. Blaine nodded, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and headed for the door.

"I love you," he called out, and Kurt gave a half hearted smile.

"I love you too," he responded quietly as Blaine left.

* * *

><p>Finn's room was pitch black, but that didn't stop Kurt from sitting on the floor regardless. It was quiet and Kurt could lay his head on Finn's bed and think. He didn't know if Finn was awake or asleep but it didn't matter. He felt reasonably assured just knowing Finn was there.<p>

He was glad Blaine didn't let him break up with him, but Blaine-despite his assurances- didn't understand what Kurt, and even Finn to a point, was going through. Rachel was now the second incredibly important person in his life to die, and Kurt wasn't going to ignore that. In a way he felt cursed, that everyone he loved would die. He knew that was silly-it wasn't his fault his mom and Rachel died. But there was still a nagging feeling in his gut, and at night he had horrible nightmares of his mom and Rachel yelling how it was all his fault. It was enough to drive him over the edge.

The doorbell rang and Finn stirred but didn't move. A couple minutes later Carole's voice rang from down the stairs, calling for Kurt. He sighed and stood up, looking over to see that yes, Finn was awake, and a look of pure torment was on his face. Kurt gave a weak smile before turning and heading down the stairs, surprised to see one of Rachel's dads in the main hallway, his dad and Carole spreading condolences to him.

"Ah, Kurt," Rachel's dad greeted, and Kurt gave a half hearted smile. He had shared his sorrow yesterday while sitting in their living room, helping with the sudden mob of people that had shown up. "Rachel, it appears, left letters to her friends. I don't remember many of the names, and yours was on top-so, if you wouldn't mind spreading them to the group?" Kurt nodded his agreement, taking the stack of cream colored envelopes. He noticed a gold star on the back of one, and fought off a sudden wave of misery. "I, uh, have to get back-it's a lot harder than you think, planning a funeral. Never thought I'd have to," her dad said, and Carole and Burt nodded in agreement.

"Thank you," Kurt said suddenly, holding up the letters when her dad looked confused. He nodded at Kurt, leaving quickly.

"Sure you're okay?" Carole asked softly, and Kurt nodded.

"I'm just going to go-" he started, waving his hand towards the top of the stairs. They understood and nodded him on, and he quickly ran to his room, grabbing his own letter and setting the rest down on his desk. He knew it was selfish to hold on to them, and he already knew he wouldn't pass them around until Finn came back-if he ever did.

Kurt sat on his bed, holding the envelope in his hands. He wanted to tear it open, yet he was partially afraid of what might happen if he did. He smirked at her gold star sticker sealing the back, thinking that even in the most morose of times she was still Rachel Berry.

It was this thought that spurred him on to opening it up, grasping the letter that he pulled out of it and reading it carefully.

_My dear Kurt;__  
>I'm sorry. I know that this, what I've done, has to hurt you more than the others. You are such a wonderful person Kurt, don't let this destroy you too. I was already too broken, never was I as strong as you. Fierce and a superior singer, yes, but not nearly as strong.<br>I hope one day you'll find your happy ending. If not for yourself, then for me, because I can't see one. I know you won't agree with me, you'd tell me it's only a matter of time before I'm on Broadway. This is why I didn't come to you, I know you'd try and convince me not to do this. But I have to, Kurt. I would rather die at 18-a teenage tragedy, with so much potential and the world at her feet, than end up like April Rhodes, or worse.  
>I've spent my whole life driven to succeed when ultimately I was destined to fail. I let the harsh words and actions of my peers affect me more than I should have. I'm not like you Kurt. You may have ran, but you came back. You are strong.<br>Don't mourn me for too long Kurt. Don't let my decision stop you from chasing your dreams, from chasing New York.  
>I love you Kurt, and I'm so fortunate to even have you in my life at all. I'm so glad that we became friends instead of rivals, I'm so glad that you forgave me for all the horrible things I did to you. I can only hope that one day you'll forgive me for this too.<br>Out of the two of us, you're the real star.  
>xoxo, Rachel Berry.<em>

* * *

><p>Kurt didn't come down for dinner that night. He became quieter in school, the words Rachel had left him constantly swirling around in his brain.<p>

_Why_, he wanted to ask her. Why would she do this, why couldn't she see what everyone else saw.

Finn remained unmoving as ever, and Kurt spent most of his time hiding out in the dark room. They never talked, Kurt wasn't even sure if Finn knew he was there, but no one bothered with them and all Kurt wanted was some silence, some peace. At school he had friends mourning and crying, Ms. Pillsbury asking if he wanted to come talk, Mr. Schuester trying to remind them all they had other things to focus on. The day after the funeral they had made a group decision to try and focus on what they were there for, something Kurt was reassured that Rachel would have wanted. He knew they didn't have a shot in hell, half of the group seemed to have lost its confidence and Rachel was no longer there to pick up slack. It quickly became apparent how much work she did for the group.

Kurt held onto the letters until Finn came back, which was pointless-Kurt knew that Finn wouldn't read his, knew Finn would rather be at home laying in bed. But he felt better handing them out when the group was whole-as whole as the group could be.

But Kurt carried on, not letting Rachel's death-or her letter-break him down. Not in public, where he had basically become Finn's guard, calming him down when he exploded in anger, making sure he ate when he was silent and withdrawn. It was funny in a humorless way, Kurt thought, how they both wanted to blame themselves for this. Funnier still how neither would admit it.

It was almost two weeks before Kurt let his guard down, before Kurt finally broke into what felt like a thousand pieces. It was something stupid, really. He had been trying to find sheet music for the song they were going to perform at Regional's-just the one, dedicated to Rachel-when he found her folder that she kept in the choir room. It was such a simple thing, to read her name and her trade mark gold star, even though he had basically memorized her handwriting from her letter that he read at least once a day, though he had thought he was immune to it by now. But it was there, in the shelf behind the white board, that he found this simple reminder and broke down in front of every one.

"I'm sorry," he tried to tell them, Blaine and Mike rushing to his side. "I'm sorry," he said again through his tears, but the two just picked him up from where he had crumpled on the ground, Blaine whispering that it was okay as they walked him to an empty classroom.

"Let it out Kurt," Blaine told him, holding him close as Mike let them have their privacy. "Just let it out." For once, Kurt listened.


	4. Blaine

Blaine couldn't sleep.

Actually, he couldn't remember the last time he had slept. It had been almost three weeks since it happened and he knew he was running on fumes, knew it was only a matter of time before he crashed and crashed hard. But he was waiting for it, hoping maybe it'd be tonight, but it never was. Night after night passed and he'd lie there, just holding Rachel's letter.

He had been pissed that Kurt hadn't given him his letter at first, annoyed that he had held on to it a whole week before handing them out. "You could have given me mine," Blaine had practically shouted in the hallway after everyone left that afternoon.

"I wanted to give them to everyone all at once," Kurt said evenly, still too numb to really process that Blaine's temper was firing.

"So you haven't read yours?" Blaine questioned, and the look on Kurt's face-guilty, nervous, showing more emotion than Blaine had noticed on his boyfriends face in almost a week- it answered Blaine's question for him. He didn't think twice before he stormed off, unopened envelope in hand.

Still, he had waited two days before opening it. He didn't know why he was waiting, or what he was waiting for, but he waited. Sometimes the letter mocked him, sitting on his bed side table with her handwriting screaming his name. The gold star on the back sending him into spirals when he remembered her sheer and uninhibited talent. It was only after he accidentally knocked it in the trash when he threw his bag on his desk that he settled in to read it, crawling into his closet where he used to hide out when his parents were yelling particularly loudly.

But that was two weeks ago now, and he had hoped that the words would stop haunting his dreams. They were the reason he couldn't sleep, he was sure a subconscious part of him was refusing too. When he slept, he dreamed of her, of the words she had written. He dreamed about what could have been, if Kurt wasn't there, if Rachel hadn't gone and offed herself.

He glanced at his clock, anger and hatred bubbling up at the red numbers that seemed to personally attack him just by reading 3:49. He rolled over, one hand wrapped around her letter, and ignored the words he practically felt her whisper.

_"I could have loved you."_

* * *

><p>When it came time to wake up and get ready for school, Blaine managed to rouse himself up and become just functioning enough to pass by as reasonably okay before he headed for school. At home he was allowing himself to mourn-he didn't eat as much as he used to, his outbursts against his parents had become more frequent, and he generally moped in his room. At school though, he had to be there for Kurt. Because Kurt was hurting maybe even more so than Blaine-or at least for a more of a reason.<p>

Kurt had been her best friend, the two had put aside all their past drama, which Blaine was unfortunately a part of, they were almost as close as Brittany and Santana-without all the sex of course. They had leaned on each other in a way neither Blaine nor anyone else had seen them do before, and it comforted Blaine to know that Kurt had someone besides himself that he could depend on.

The fact that it meant Blaine got to spend more time with Rachel was just a fortunate side effect.

The fact that Blaine was glad to have a reason to spend more time with Rachel was a secret he hoped he could carry to his own grave.

At school, Blaine was the supportive boyfriend to the best friend of the girl who died. It was worse than being known as the gay kids boyfriend, but people still generally let him be. The only person who even suspected that maybe Blaine was wearing thin, that he wasn't doing as well as appeared was Mike.

"Blaine, you look like a mess," he told him that afternoon as he walked up to his locker. Blaine just shot a look at Mike, who shut up for approximately twenty seconds. "Have you slept at all?"

"I get like, two, maybe three hours a night," Blaine shrugged, hoping his nonchalance would level his friend out.

"Dude. You need more sleep."

"No shit," Blaine snapped back, "but it's not exactly coming so easily these days."

"I know you're worried about Kurt-" Mike started, flinching a little as Blaine slammed his locker closed. "Dude."

"I'm sorry, I'm just-god I am so fucking sick of everyone acting like Finn and Kurt are the only two who lost someone important."

"No one's acting like that Blaine," Mike said quietly.

"Yes, they are. They're waiting for one of the two of them to have either a fit of rage or a complete and total meltdown. Meanwhile, I think the only one whose noticed Tina's stuttering is you, I'm pretty sure no one saw that giant gash on Quinn's arm when her sleeve fell down the other day, or that Brittany has completely stopped talking at all. Puck hasn't made a sarcastic remark since the funeral, no one seems to care that Lauren is only still there because Puck is, no one cares about anyone but Finn and Kurt and when they're going to break, how they're going to break. Maybe they'll care about themselves. But it's just a matter of time, once we lose at Regionals the group is going to disperse and no one's even going to care about anyone anymore. No one cares that we were all friends with her, that some of us cared about her more than they let on, that-she was important to me too, more than just in a 'she was my boyfriend's best friend' kind of way." Mike didn't say anything, just kind of stared at Blaine. "I'm sorry, I'm just-"

"Heart broken," Mike finished for him.

* * *

><p>And that was how Mike found out about Blaine's secret, the one he had kept so well for almost a year. That was how he found out Blaine was in love with Rachel.<p>

"Why didn't you ever talk to her about it?" Mike asked, playing with the sole of his shoe where it was starting to peel. They were sitting in the empty hallway against the lockers, the school deserted since everyone had gone home.

"Yeah, that would have gone over well," Blaine replied sarcastically. "'Um, Kurt, no biggie but I'm in love with your best friend. Who happens to be a girl,'" he gave off a high pitched laugh, and Mike gave him a weird look as he continued with his mocking speech. "'Hey Finn! Why do you look like you're going to murder me?' Yeah. That would have gone over really, really well."

"I said her, implying Rachel, not your boyfriend-who you still probably should have told anyways."

"What would it have mattered? She was either with Finn or moping over Finn, and I was dating Kurt. It would have only gathered a lot of unnecessary drama."

"This is true," Mike agreed. Blaine liked having Mike as his friend-Mike had managed to avoid almost two and a half years' worth of drama that everyone else stirred up, and for the most part it gave Blaine a level head when he got mixed into the groups problems. "Have you told Kurt at all that you need to lean on him?" Mike asked after a couple silent minutes.

Blaine shrugged, rubbing his eyes as a headache started to form. "Right after it happened he tried to break up with me," Blaine answered. "I told him-well, I yelled at him-that she was my friend too. That I might need to lean on him as much as he might need to lean on me."

"What did he say? I mean you guys are clearly not broken up. I think."

"We're not-although we've spent minimal time together lately. He's been on full time Finn duty." Mike nodded, clearly deep in thought.

"Well, I can't provide you with the comfort of sex-" Blaine snorted, letting it turn into real genuine laughter instead of dying out as Mike kept talking. "But I can talk if you need too. Why are you still laughing?" Blaine shrugged, tears now streaming down his face as he was practically doubled over in hysterics, unable to pinpoint exactly what it was that Mike had said that was so amusing, just knowing that he couldn't seem to stop.

"I just, I have no idea," he said through giggles, leaning into Mike's shoulder as he continued to crack up.

"Well, I'll have to keep that joke in my back pocket then," Mike retorted, cracking a smile of his own.

* * *

><p>Blaine had only read the letter once.<p>

He hadn't needed to read it more than that; her words had cut so deep that they were practically engraved in his bones. He could recite it aloud, word for word. Not that he did, her voice just had a tendency to recite it in his dreams.

Which is why he refused to sleep.

But he was exhausted after he got home, climbing up the stairs and hoping he could just nap for even ten minutes before his parents got home, before his mom undoubtedly called him down for supper. Before he had to endure his father's narrow-minded comments, though even those were hurting less these days. He crashed onto his bed, ignoring the envelope encasing the letter under his pillow, refusing to acknowledge it as he tried to think of something peaceful, something happy, anything that would give him a few moments of peace.

He lay there for almost two hours before his mom's voice floated up the stairs, calling him down for dinner. He hadn't managed to sleep, ended up pulling out the letter and staring at the gold star on the back of it most of the time as darkness fell, until it was so dark in his room he couldn't see his hand-much less the back of the cream envelope. He sighed, placing it back under his pillow before heading down the stairs.

He greeted his parents thinly, sitting down in the same spot he had been sitting for what seemed like his entire life, glancing at the same plates he could never even imagine not owning. His mom passed him the salt and pepper, and he shook a tiny bit over his steak before passing it to his dad-the same thing they did every night, every week, every month for the past 17 years. He felt trapped, claustrophobic, and sometimes when he got thinking too deeply about what his life was like he didn't blame Rachel for what she did.

"Did you see about the robbery over in Westerville?" his dad asked his mom, and she shook his head. Blaine stabbed his fork into a carrot, spinning it around in the pool of butter now forming on his plate as they started small talk, occasionally their words penetrating Blaine's mind as his thoughts wandered.

"Blaine?" his dad asked, and Blaine's neck snapped up to look at him.

"What?" he asked, his voice sounding foreign to himself.

"Are you okay sweetie?" his mom asked, her face worried as she reached out to place a hand on his.

"Fine, I'm fine. Just, uh, not hungry. I think I'm going to work on homework," he excused himself, ignoring his parents concerned faces.

He had only made it to the top of the stairs when he heard his father's voice, crisp and clear. "You know, I think the death of that girl really shook him." _No shit_, Blaine thought bitterly, but stood where he was even though he knew deep down inside it was probably a bad idea to do so.

"Well, they were friends," his mom replied.

"It's too bad," his father said, and he could hear a chair being scraped backwards against the floor. "It's almost like he was in love with her or something. He could have had a chance to be normal with her."

He felt sick immediately, rushing to the bathroom to throw up as his father's words bounced off the sides of his brain, melting into Rachel's written words of _We could have had a chance at something_, and he heaved everything he had eaten in what felt like the past month out before collapsing on the cold bathroom tile.

* * *

><p>When he woke up, it was dark and he was in his bed. He didn't remember how he had gotten there-he realized with a jolt that the last thing he did remember was throwing up in the bathroom. He supposed his parents had found him and moved him, and sure enough when he rolled over there was a trash can next to his bed. He scowled at it, rolling out of bed to at least change into some pajamas.<p>

He knew it was a bad idea to read the letter, after the day he had, but as he climbed back into his bed and turned the small desk lamp located on the table next to his bed on, he couldn't feel bad enough to stop himself. He slid the letter out, heart and stomach swooping low again as her words danced in front of him, glancing to make sure that the trash can was still there just in case he did need it.

The words seemed to glare at him with the same fierce look she would sometimes give him when he was slacking during Glee, or when he and Kurt were fighting and Kurt had informed Rachel how it was Blaine's fault. But their meaning, the actual words-they reminded him more of the time last winter when they had kissed, soft and full of wonder and potential that was halted before it could even begin.

_Dear Blaine_, it began, and Blaine could already hear her voice as he read it. _I hope you know that even though we may not have known each other very long, you were very important to me_. _Not only were you-are you-extraordinarily talented, but you were kind to me and respected me in a way that very few did. You didn't pretend I didn't exist, or hate me for a silly reason-I'd like to say that we got on well enough. And while we may not have gotten to spend too much time together, that was probably best. That day, in the Lima Bean, when you said you were 100% gay? That stung more than I thought it would. But the rejection faded, at least for awhile, because I saw how happy you made Kurt-and I definitely want him to be happy. And I thought we could work through it once you transferred to McKinley. And it seems like we did, at least on the surface.  
>While my heart always seemed to be sealed to Finn, I want you to know that we could have had a chance at something, something real. If you were straight, or at the very least bisexual that is. I could have loved you, as more than a friend.<br>But, at the very least, thank you for being my friend.  
>I love you, and I wish you only the best Blaine Anderson.<br>xoxo Rachel Berry_

He read the letter again and again, until the words all seemed to blur together from his tear, her voice reading the words aloud in his head.

_I love you too_, he thought as he folded the letter up and put it away.


	5. Jesse

"Your mail is on the kitchen table," his roommate Isaac announced when Jesse walked in to the apartment they shared just off campus of UCI, where he had transferred to at the beginning of the year.

"Thanks," Jesse replied as he walked by the table, exhausted from a late nights rehearsal.

"Aren't you going to read it?"

"Right now?"

"Yes."

"I wasn't planning on it," Jesse shrugged, but he glanced at the pile and noticed a familiar script, and a smirk crossed his face.

"I knew you were a bit of a slut, but I didn't think you were making girls fall so in love with you they started writing love letters."

Jesse grabbed the envelope and glanced it over. Maybe Rachel was finally coming to her senses, maybe she had finally realized Finn was a silly high school boy determined to keep her from her true life's ambition, being a star. "No, this one is different," Jesse said quietly, ignoring his roommates scoff.

"Okay then. I'll let you be with your high school sweetheart," he retorted, clearly bored now that he discovered it wasn't from one of Jesse's easy conquests he took on to pass the time away with.

Jesse sat down at the table dialing Rachel's number before even opening the letter. An automatic voice picked up-"_Sorry, this line is no longer in service_," and Jesse frowned, realizing for the first time that the post mark was from almost a month ago. He opened it now, feeling an off sense of foreboding-and he felt like his heart stopped after the first few words.

_Dear Jesse,__  
><em>_I'm sure this is the only way you'll even find out what happened, if you even care that it has. But since the rest of McKinley isn't fond of you, I figured you deserved to hear-read-from me what happened.__  
><em>_I'm dead.__  
><em>_There were a lot of factors that played into it, none of which can be fixed now. I'm in this too deep, Jesse, and I don't believe there's a way I can ever get out.__  
><em>_I want you to know that I'm sorry for that incident in New York last spring. I realized, maybe too late, that it was a mistake and completely unprofessional to kiss Finn on that stage. I realized later that I might have broken your heart, and I deeply apologize. There was a point in time where I loved you, would have done anything to have you back, but that time has past. It still wasn't right for me to ignore what you had done, flying across the country to see me, and I apologize.__  
><em>_I hope one day you can become a star Jesse-you have the talent and drive enough to. I'm sorry I won't be there to see it happen, but I know you can do it.  
>Think of me when you're making your first Oscar winners speech. <em>_  
><em>_xoxo, Rachel Berry_

Jesse ripped the letter in half, leaving it on the table as he stormed out of the apartment, unaware as to where he was going but knowing he couldn't be in the same room as that letter.

* * *

><p>He didn't come back to the apartment until nearly three in the morning, and he immediately noticed the letter was taped back up-he scoffed; figuring that Isaac must have taped it back together after he had left. He left it on the table and slammed his door closed, his mind still racing.<p>

He had tried calling Rachel's phone all night, hoping that she sent it before anything had happened, that she had changed her mind, maybe even that someone had found her and saved her before it was too late.

He wished he had been there to save her.

His sleep was interrupted with flashbacks to their _Run, Joey Run _video-of Rachel laying in his arms pretending to be dead. Except this time, in his dreams, she really was.

When he woke up the next day for classes, he was reminded that the truth wasn't limited to his dreams.

* * *

><p>He still had to hear it from someone, to be 100% sure. He had spent the entire drive to class convincing himself that Rachel just changed her number, that this was some sort of sick joke so that he'd never go near her again, that Finn had drugged her and made her write it so Jesse couldn't come in the way of their relationship again.<p>

He was almost 100% convinced, except that voice in his head that kept laughing at him.

Laughing because he would never get to hear her sing again, see her perform, see _her_.

He gave up about halfway through a philosophy lecture, walking out of the class without thinking about the repercussions-he might have been trying harder, now that he was back at school, but that didn't mean he wasn't sill arrogant enough to think he could get away with whatever he wanted. He loaded facebook on his phone, something he usually avoided doing so that he wouldn't have to see Rachel and Finn's updated relationship status every few days, wouldn't have to hear about how Vocal Adrenaline sucked now that he was gone, wouldn't have to hear from the girls he was using to waste time until Rachel came back to him. He realized now that if he had been on, he might have seen a few updates from the McKinley group-only a few of whom he was friends with on facebook, and he kept most of their posts hidden, but the things they wrote on Rachel's wall would have shown up.

He didn't go to her facebook though, because seeing what people who didn't actually _see _Rachel would have killed him. He didn't even go to Finn's-he never saw Rachel as anything more than a girl with a nice ass and great legs who doted on him even though he didn't deserve it. He didn't see her passion beyond the obvious surface desire to be famous, to be a great singer. He didn't see the fire that seemed to light her from the inside out, until she was practically screaming.

Jesse had seen that. Jesse had seen the compassion she had for her friends, the ones she genuinely cared about who only seemed to see her when they needed someone to back them up, someone to listen to their woes. But how many of them actually listened to Rachel? How many noticed that when they put her down, it hurt her more than she let on. She was strong, but she had admitted it herself-she had a compulsive need to be popular. It wasn't even popularity she really wanted.

She wanted people to like her.

He had liked her, and he had fucked it all up.

He had _loved _her, and he had fucked it all up.

And granted, when he tried to make things better, when he went back and tried to fix everything he had screwed up so much the year before, it backfired and she ran back to Hudson, but he had made more of an effort than most of the rest of them.

He found the number he wanted, quickly calling it.

"What?" Kurt snapped into the phone, and Jesse half-smiled. He had always enjoyed Kurt's attitude and flair for-well, at the time he attended McKinley it wasn't fashion, but he seemed to have grown into himself.

"Kurt Hummel? It's Jesse St. James."

"I know who it is Jesse, I have you in my phone because Rachel insisted in putting you in there so she would have your phone number without it being in her immediate grasp," Kurt retorted, clearly irritated.

"Speaking of Rachel-"

"You didn't hear?" Kurt asked now, a tone of surprise. "I mean, shit, I thought someone would have called you but that probably would have come down to me. Fuck. Yeah-"

"So it's true then," Jesse said quietly, his heart sinking.

"How'd you find out?"

"She sent me a letter," Jesse replied. "How long ago did it-I mean, the post mark was from last month so I assume it's been awhile, I think it got lost in the mail or something," he mumbled, his words all running together in a way that he wasn't even sure was coherent.

"Yeah, she's nothing if not dramatic, even in her death," Kurt mused from the other end. "She wrote all of us letters. At least you opened yours, Finn still refuses to acknowledge he has one." Jesse rolled his eyes, because of course Hudson would be acting like a child at a time like this. "Anyways, it's been-wow, about a month already. When you don't get much sleep time starts running together I guess." Jesse didn't say anything, sitting down on a curb, feeling his blood rushing through his body, practically dizzy as he tried to compose himself. "I'm sorry no one told you, and uh-you know, I'm sorry this happened at all."

"Not your fault," Jesse managed to choke up, and _god damn it _he was not about to cry in the middle of campus. "Sorry too," he got out before turning the phone off, hanging his head down and willing the tears to stop long enough to get a grip on himself, at least find his way to his car.

His body didn't seem to listen to him.

* * *

><p>He skipped rehearsal that afternoon, too spent to do more than lay around on the couch and hope that something reasonably decent was on television. He had spent the better part of two hours in his car trying to compose himself, sure he scared off some people that had made the mistake of parking around him, but he couldn't figure out a way to <em>stop <em>the crying. And when he had, there was no way he was going to spend the rest of the day singing love songs with some blonde who didn't have nearly a quarter of the talent Rachel Berry had.

Isaac came in around 5, throwing a pizza box on the kitchen table and walking into their living room where Jesse was zoned out in front of some Disney Channel show he wasn't actually watching. "I'm sorry about your girlfriend," Isaac said, turning the TV down-Jesse had raised the volume up to it's loudest so it could help block out his thoughts, not that it had helped any.

"She isn't my girlfriend," Jesse said monotonously. "When I tried to get back together with her, she chose a teenage gorilla who happens to be about twelve feet tall."

"Ouch," he said from the doorway, and Jesse noticed for the first time that he was holding the letter.

"Why do you have my letter? And why did you read it in the first place?" he asked, lacking the energy to really get mad or upset or emotional at all, lethargy taking over completely.

"Well, you stormed out of here so quickly and I saw it torn up on the table-honestly I figured she was pregnant or something like that. I didn't think it was anything-I'm sorry man. But, do you really want to rip it up and throw it out?"

"Yes," Jesse said aloud, though inside his head was screaming _no_, because he knew he shouldn't, knew it was almost like he would be throwing _her _out. And he knew that no matter what had transpired between them, no matter how they had ended-she cared enough to send him a letter before ending her life, he was one of the most important people in her life, and he couldn't throw it out. He wouldn't throw it away and destroy the last thing she had left to him just because he was upset now. "No," he sighed, forcing himself off the couch and grabbing the letter from Isaac's hand, heading for his own room and solitude behind a closed door, taking out a scrap book he kept hidden away in a dresser drawer-something she had made for him just before he broke her heart, a picture of the two of them smiling staring back at him as he tucked her letter inside a page in the book, putting it back where he had taken it from before laying on his bed, waiting for sleep to overtake him.


	6. Santana

"Are you nervous?" Brittany asked quietly, causing Santana to nearly jump out of her own skin. Brittany had barely spoken in weeks, and when she did it was with short, quiet words. Santana gave her a small smile, shrugging her shoulders.

"The show must go on, or some bullshit like that. Kurt said this is what she would have wanted." Brittany nodded, Santana's answer seemed to satisfy her. She reached down and took Brittany's hand, squeezing it as the announcer gave the introduction to New Directions. "Here goes nothing," she muttered before walking to the middle of the stage, Kurt doing the side from the opposite wing.

* * *

><p>Kurt had announced three weeks ago exactly what song they were doing for Regional's. "She told me once, when I was auditioning for a solo with the Warbler's, that when she pictured her funeral-" a few faces blanched at his words, even Santana herself feeling queasy, "that the song she associated with it the most was <em>'Don't Cry For Me Argentina'<em>." As one of the few in the group who could get through a whole song without having some sort of apparent breakdown, Santana was chosen to be his duet partner. No one even fought for leads and solos anymore.

Santana marveled at how well Kurt appeared to be holding it together-not that she'd ever tell him that, because she was still Santana at school. She was still a bitch, not going to act all torn up about Berry just because she was dead. Except that she was, because she had finally gotten around to edging past "tolerable" to "potentially okay". She had even called her Rachel a few times, instead of her normal Berry or the occasional 'loud mouthed Hobbit', or-back in the day, in a time Santana wasn't yet ready to acknowledge- even worse names. Names that Santana feared made Rachel go over the edge.

And that day that Kurt passed her the letter from Rachel, she ripped it open, waiting to see words or hate and torment to get back at Santana. Something to destroy her just as she had helped cause the destruction of Rachel. She never expected something relatively nice, and it pissed Santana off even more that her letter almost made her cry in the middle of Glee.

Almost.

* * *

><p>Santana gave the song her all, aware she was putting more effort into a competition that they all wanted to lose than she had when they desired nothing more than a win. But this wasn't about New Directions anymore, it was about Rachel. Which was exactly what Rachel had wanted when she was a part of New Directions, and <em>fuck <em>if Berry didn't always get her way. The rest of the group filed out to sing a soft melody in the background, but mostly just so they could count as a performance with an entire group. They still managed to sound decent, having put more practice for this one song than they had the entire two years previous. As Santana and Kurt hit the final note, the audience stood and cheered, Santana noticed a few Warbler's doing wolf-whistles, presumably for Kurt and Blaine. Kurt and Santana looked at each other as they audience clapped, they had decided against mentioning Rachel to avoid gaining a sympathy vote with the judges, but they were both thinking the same thing. The entire group was thinking the same thing.

_I miss you Rachel._

_This is for you._

* * *

><p>"San, are you crying?" Brittany asked later that night, stroking Santana's back.<p>

"No," Santana lied, and Brittany gave her that big, sad eyed look she had been wearing a lot lately, the one that usually meant she was upset and confused and hurt.

"Why are you crying?" She asked her quietly, snuggling closer under the covers. Santana's parents never cared when Brittany slept over-they were rarely in the house anyways. "Is it because you miss Rachel?"

"No," Santana lied again. The truth was she had fallen into a semi-conscious state where she let herself think. It used to be mostly about Brittany, and how the fuck they were supposed to be together without getting the shit kicked out of them all the time, but now it was mostly memories that almost always included Rachel. The one that had currently caught her off guard was their first Sectionals, after Rachel had accused them of being spies. More specifically how Rachel, who had been so quick to judge her, was the first-and only, at the time- to believe Santana. And just three simple words, 'I believe you', well they fucked with Santana's head.

"San, we can talk about it. I'll read you my letter again," and Santana shook her head.

"More fucking, less talking," she growled, and while Brittany looked concerned, this was happening more and more often and Santana was relieved when Brittany let her climb on top of her, a false sense of hope that maybe this time an orgasm would release her pain.

* * *

><p>The next morning Santana awoke to Brittany's soft voice humming at the edge of the bed, and she quickly realized it was <em>Don't Cry For Me<em>. "Stop," Santana snapped, because it was too early to have to deal with something that made Santana feel anything period.

"Sorry," Brittany whispered, tucking her legs underneath herself and looking up at Santana. "I want to read the letters again."

"Where did you get mine?" Santana asked, because she had hidden hers to avoid this exact situation-sure, the first few hours after they got them, Santana read Brittany's and Brittany read Santana's, but she didn't want to face this again.

"I found it in your secret box of things," Brittany shrugged, and Santana sighed heavily-she knew she should have hidden it better, but she never expected Brittany to actually look through her stuff.

"I can't do this right now," Santana said instead, barely glancing at the pieces of paper in Brittany's hands.

"But I think it'll be better for both of us," Brittany replied. "I know you think sex is going to fix you, but it's not working San."

"I thought it worked pretty well last night," Santana muttered, but Brittany shook her head.

"You're avoiding things, and you're the one who told me that avoiding things only makes them worse in the end." Santana just glared, but Brittany pressed on. "I'll read mine first, it's shorter."

"It's like, three sentences."

"That's because she knew I wouldn't want to read a lot. She kept it simple for me, because she knew that I would like that better."

"Or because she was-"

"Don't, Santana. Just, sit quietly while I read out loud, okay?" Santana huffed, crossing her arms against her chest and staring at the ceiling, but she didn't argue, instead deciding it was easier to just let Brittany do what she wanted-after all, the sooner she was done reading the letters again, the sooner Santana could talk her into more sweet lady kisses, the sooner Santana would be on her way to another earth shattering climax that erased any thoughts out of her mind. Reading the stupid letters wasn't solving anything, but sex-sex was making it a lot more bearable. "Are you ready?" Brittany asked, waiting for a response. Santana grunted without a real commitment, and Brittany pressed on. "'Dear Brittany, I hope you know that while I may not have mentioned it in my life, I did think you were a phenomenal dancer. You were a great contribution to our group. If you do decide to try and make legwarmers popular again, just try and remember they go on your legs next time. Xoxo, Rachel Berry."' Santana glared at the ceiling, because only Rachel would think to try and make a horrible joke and compliment Brittany while she was in the middle of _dying_.

Not that she was positive when she wrote these letters, but they seemed kind of like a drugged out, drunk Rachel Berry things to say. Santana might not have seen Blaine's letter, but she was willing to bet Rachel managed to find a way to hit on him through it. "That was great Brits, but can we do something a little more-productive? With a little less talking?"

"We still have to read your letter though," Brittany stated, and Santana shook her head.

"No, no we can read it after-"

"No, you say that but we won't. You'll make me forget about it and it's _important_. I was talking to Ms. Pillsbury and she said that it's important to mourn properly so you can heal. She said that reading the letters that Rachel left for us might make things better. You haven't looked at yours since Kurt gave them to us."

"You don't know that," Santana shot back, even though it was the truth.

"I don't have to read it out loud," Brittany said quietly, moving across the bed to sit next to Santana now. "I'll just sit next to you while you read it out loud. I like your reading voice," she said, and Santana scoffed, snatching the letter out of Brittany's hands as Brittany settled herself in, resting her head on Santana's shoulder.

"Fine, if this is what will make you happy, fine. But you owe me extra lady kisses afterwards."

"Deal," Brittany smiled, closing her eyes and letting Santana focus.

She looked at the letter in front of her and with a sense of dread-she wasn't going to cry, she didn't the first time so why would she now?-she started reading it, her voice quieter than normal as her eyes scanned the page. "Dear Santana," she started, her voice a little shaky.

"It's okay," Brittany whispered, and Santana nodded, focusing once more.

"Dear Santana, I know that we've had our differences and at times were often on opposing ends of fights, but I think you should know I think you're a wonderful person. You seem a little confused, and while I'm sure a lot of it has to do with your relationship with Brittany-" Brittany squeezed Santana's thigh at this part, reminding her to breathe before she continued on. "While I'm sure a lot of it has to do with your relationship with Brittany, I'm sure you two will figure it out in the end. You both deserve a world of happiness together, everyone can see how in love you are-even if you want to try and hide it. As for all the arguments and pettiness we've had in our past, the name calling and you sleeping with Finn-well, I've moved on from that, and I don't want you to blame yourself for anything that's happened. This is bigger than you and my spats, this is bigger than high school. I'm not sure why exactly I feel the need to tell you this, except that I think you're dealing with a lot of emotions-something I can relate to-and I didn't want to add guilt into the mix." Santana took another deep breath, because she had been so relieved that Rachel had basically given her an out, given her a way to not feel like shit every time she thought about her death.

"You can do it San," Brittany whispered, placing a small kiss on her shoulder. Santana nodded, finding her place once more before continuing to read.

"I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors, and only hope that you can help keep the Glee club what it has been before this happened. I'm sure Finn and Kurt, at the very least, will need any sense of normality they can receive. Good luck Santana. Xoxo, Rachel Berry." Santana's voice cracked as she read Rachel's name, and Brittany sat up, wrapping a protective arm around her and pulling her in close as Santana let tears fall down.

"It's okay San, I love you," Brittany whispered, and Santana nodded, letting the tears flow quietly as she once more damned Rachel Berry for doing this to them all.


	7. Quinn

_Dear Quinn,  
>I hope there are no hard feelings between us anymore. I know we were rivals for the better part of two and a half years, but I never hated you. Even with all of our petty drama over Finn, I still saw you as a person Quinn, and I'm sorry that our personalities and desires clashed so that we could never truly become real friends. Because I think you needed a friend as much as I did sometimes.<br>I hope that as you get older you find happiness. I hope that you come to terms with the decisions you've made in your life, that you deal with the things you're ignoring now. Even as I prepare to do what I must do, I know there are other options. Please, for your life, choose them. Seek help. Because I think you could use someone to confide in.  
>I know you'll probably take my position as head of the group now, and I can only ask that you lead them better than I did. They might listen to you more, take your advice more.<br>Have a good life Quinn.  
>xoxo, Rachel Berry<em>

Quinn scoffed as she read through the letter Kurt had just handed her, throwing it in the trash on her way out of the bathroom. The last thing she wanted was another reminder of Rachel's death, another reminder that nothing in her life would ever go well.

* * *

><p>Quinn wasn't handling anything well anymore. Rachel's death seemed to be the trigger that set off all her other emotions that she had kept so well hidden under wraps. She felt like she spent more time crying than breathing, and now that it had been a little over a month since it happened, she wasn't even sure what she was crying about anymore.<p>

There was the whole babygate issue and giving away Beth. She had never dealt with that, instead choosing to work hard to pretend it never happened. She had this hole in her heart from that, one she was sure would never close. Giving away Beth was the right decision, she knew that, but it didn't change the fact that every day she woke up knowing she had given birth to a child she'd never get to know. A child she'd never get to hold, to comfort, to love. Puck had tried to talk to her about it, after the baby was born. She shut down though, trying to focus on herself and ignore all the horrible feelings that threatened to take over. After awhile, Puck stopped trying, and the two hadn't even spoken in what felt like decades. But talking to Puck reminded her of the fact that she had a child with him, and so she kept her distance.

Then there was her parents' divorce. Her father still refused to even acknowledge her existence, and when her birthday came and went without so much as a generic card from him she locked herself in her room and cried for a day straight. She didn't understand how one mistake could fuck up their relationship so much, but she supposed she never would. Her mother, for her part, tried. But she was either too involved, treating Quinn like her best friend, or too distant, pretending that Quinn wasn't even there. There was no middle ground, and Quinn just wanted a mom to cry to. Instead she felt like she was on her own, a 17 year old with a 50 year old's pain.

Lastly there was Rachel, and her death, and that only seemed to push her over the edge of relative sanity.

* * *

><p>"Now, I know we weren't expecting to win Regional's," Mr. Schuester said the Monday following the event, the group quieter than ever as they waited to hear what the plan was. "But we did, because we do have amazing vocalists in this group-Kurt and Santana were excellent as our leads." Santana wasn't looking at Schue, instead focused on her own hands while Kurt stared straight ahead. Quinn, for her part, was sitting in the back of the class, pressing down on an old scar, a dull pain from the skin trying to heal satisfying her for now. She wanted nothing more than to quit Glee and never look back, but no one else had, even if no one had the same passion for it.<p>

None of them had been as passionate as she had been anyways.

Thinking about Rachel made her feel guilty, and she tuned out whatever Mr. Schuester was trying to talk to them about as she stared down at her legs, the jeans she had worn scratching the long cuts she had made the previous night uncomfortably. She knew it was stupid to cut, heard that they had found marks all across Rachel's body, that she had slit her wrists. She knew it could become addicting, but it was just such a relief to have _something _to do to distract her from her thoughts. Something to take any bit of the emotional torment away from her.

Sometimes, when she was cleaning up after herself, she wondered if this was how Rachel felt. Trapped, scared, powerless, disappointed, miserable. She wondered if she was headed on the same track Rachel was, how long it took her to go from the almost annoyingly optimistic future star to the teenage tragedy. She wondered how none of them noticed it happening.

She wondered if any of them had noticed if they could have stopped it.

* * *

><p>"Quinn, are you hungry?" her mom called up the stairs, and Quinn panicked, cutting deeper than she meant to from being startled.<p>

"No mom!" she called out, probably sounding more alarmed than she needed to. Her mom didn't question it though, Quinn's tone had rarely been pleasant the past few months, and Quinn swore under her breath as she got a washcloth out and pressed it hard to her side, laying down on the bathroom floor to stop feeling woozy from the accidental amount of blood she was losing. The feeling of cutting wasn't becoming as satisfactory as it had once been, the pain not nearly as _enough _as it had been in the beginning. She was worried she was becoming numb to it, like she was numb to so much else.

She cringed as she looked at the washcloth, soaked through in a deep red, before throwing it away in her trashcan, letting her shirt fall back down. The fabric irritated it, but fabric irritated most of her skin these days. There were fewer and fewer spots on her body where she didn't have a cut in some form-whether new and fresh, in the process of healing, or almost done scarring over. The first one she had done, the day of Rachel's funeral, had left a deep scar-but it had been a new experience, she wasn't sure what she was doing, just knew that some of the girls on the Cheerio's mocked some of the 'emo' girls for their scars, for their cutting. Knew that the girls did it because they were upset, wanted to feel a different pain. She had panicked at first, scared she had done too much damage to herself, but tried her best to hide it nonetheless.

And she was doing a good job of hiding this. Of keeping it inside like so many other things. There was only one time, an accident when her shirt sleeve had fallen down her arm a few days after that first incident, and Blaine had looked over at her, a little too concerned for her taste. But she had shot him a glare, pulling at her sleeve until her hand was basically invisible underneath it, and after that she had taken to cutting in an area less likely to be accidentally revealed. She was glad she didn't have Cheerio's anymore, or gym-as a senior, she was given the opportunity to skip that particular class. Changing in front of anyone else would have been a nightmare, a horror to explain to anyone. She didn't even like changing in front of herself-when she caught her reflection, she often was reduced to tears. She had spent so much time trying to turn into a 'pretty' girl, thin, clear skin, blonde hair. Now though, her hair was starting to darken without a desire to do anything with it, the ends split from a lack of a haircut. She was vaguely aware she was starting to gain weight, but she was wearing looser clothing to prevent getting rash around all her scars anyways so she was able to ignore the signs for that. The cuts though, they were the worst.

The lines that crisscrossed her body made her want to simultaneously add more, as if it was a painting she left half done, or cover up and never see them again. They were both beautiful and horrifying, something that showed the physical signs of her pain, the pain she could never seem to verbalize, while showing her biggest weakness. She wasn't able to communicate with people, she was isolated and alone, and no one had done that to her but herself.

Everything that had gone wrong in her life was her own fault, from her pregnancy to Rachel's death. And no matter what, she was sure she had played a hand in Rachel's death.

* * *

><p>"Are you coming over to Finn and Kurt's?" Santana asked her as they all left the choir room the next afternoon, and Quinn had to focus hard on her words to even comprehend that she was speaking to her. No one seemed to speak to her anymore.<p>

"I-I wasn't planning on it," she said quietly, her own voice sounding foreign to her. "Why? What's going on?"

"Well, Hudson hasn't left the house since Saturday night, so Kurt suggested that a few friendly faces might help," Santana shrugged. "I didn't know if he'd invited you or not."

"Not," Quinn responded, feeling despairingly lonely once more. "I'm busy anyways," she lied, the thought of going home and stuffing her face before marking her right thigh dangling in the forefront of her mind.

"Okay," Santana replied, glancing warily at Quinn before heading off towards where Brittany was waiting for her beside Kurt. Quinn watched as the three of them headed for the doors, Puck joining their group and leaving Quinn behind. She tried not to think about how in another life, it would have been her leading that group. How it would have been her job as Finn's girlfriend to make sure he was okay. How it would have been her job as secondary leader of the group to make sure the group was okay.

But Rachel dying had changed everything. It had made Kurt take charge, because Kurt was the only one who really knew what it was like to lose someone you cared so much about and still move on, still face every day. The rest of the group was still too young, too immature to handle something as real and scary as death.

Quinn stalked out to her car, climbing in and rolling down the window. It was still freezing outside, but the cold seemed worth it to not be sitting in a silent car. The radio was too much, songs reminding her of Rachel in the weirdest way. They hadn't even been close, had barely even been friends-frenemies, as Finn had coined them once. They had come to some sort of reasonable solution that year though, with Rachel and Finn back together and Quinn focusing on college, on getting out of Lima. She had no hopes on getting out of Ohio, but at least another town wouldn't hold as many memories, wouldn't hold as much of the heartache she felt being stuck in Lima. She cringed as she thought of the past year, the fact that they had even spent _time _together outside of Glee. All the Glee girls hanging out in Santana's yard while Rachel tried to explain their mash-up for the annual contest, Brittany laughing and twirling around Rachel as she lectured them, blowing bubbles all around the girls. Eventually even Rachel had to smile, giving in when Santana said she had more, all of them laying on the grass and blowing bubbles like they were children. It was one of the times Quinn had felt _nice _again, she had felt like just any other 17 year old girl. Sometimes when it was late at night, and Quinn couldn't sleep, she could hear Rachel's laughter from that day.

Quinn walked quickly up to her bedroom, not even thinking as she unbuttoned her pants, folding them and putting them on her dresser carefully, her shirt quickly following. She had a feeling that one wouldn't be enough today, and as she situated herself on the bathroom floor, knife in hand, she started crying.

Still, she had come this far, and she wasn't one to back down-the knife cut into her skin quickly as she opened up a healed wound on her thigh, taking a moment to soak up the hurt that it caused her entire body, shaking a little as she raised the knife to her arm-higher, above her elbow so that it would be covered completely by long sleeves, slicing and watching as the blood flowed immediately, the tears making her vision blurry as she placed the knife on the floor, one hand pressed tightly against both new cuts. The actual cutting wasn't as bad anymore, she supposed she was getting a higher pain tolerance, but the pure act alone made her cry, loudly, knowing her mom wouldn't be home for hours. She cried out her pain for herself, for her child, for her mother and father, for Rachel.

It wasn't until Santana held her closely that she even noticed anyone else was there. Santana whispered quietly in her ear, and as Quinn tried to calm herself down she noticed someone else-presumably Brittany-picking up the knife and throwing it away. "We're not going to let you do this anymore Quinn," Santana told her. "We're here for you now. We'll get through this together."


	8. Mike

Mike was trying to block out the memory of that first night more than anything else. The funeral-while it wasn't easy, it was less difficult to process. Things were starting to make sense again. But that first night, he almost felt like there was no way any of them would make it through.

Blaine had been the one to call him, Tina rolling her eyes when he went to answer the phone, quipping "your boyfriend should know not to call when we're making out.". But when Mike repeated "Dead? But-how?" Tina quickly shut up. They had gone over to Rachel's house, everyone had once someone else told them. It was like no one truly believed it until they pulled up, neighbors milling about, clucking how unfortunate it was, the rest of the club hesitantly getting out of cars. Kurt was the first one to the door, Blaine trailing behind silently as they walked straight in-there was no need to knock, the worst had already happened. Finn was sitting in the living room, almost in a daze. Mike and Tina gave Rachel's fathers their condolences, sitting on the ground near Blaine while Kurt watched over Finn.

They stayed for what felt like years, Tina crying next to him while he wrapped his arms around her, shooting apologetic glances at everyone around the room. When Kurt said he was going to take Finn home, Blaine nodded, looking at Mike as if he could save him, though Mike didn't know how. "Let's-let's get something to eat," Mike decided, as he pushed a sobbing Tina towards his car. "Follow us, we'll go to a diner or something." Blaine nodded, climbing into his own car.

The three of them sat at the diner for ages, their waitress not bothering them. Mike poked at his eggs while Blaine swirled his waffles around in syrup, Tina inhaling more food than Mike could remember her ever eating. "You okay?" Mike asked at one point, but her responding glare and puffy eyes shut him up as he attempted to eat another piece of bacon. It was like they were waiting for some good news, any news. Some sort of miraculous moment where she'd come back to life, sitting up on the autopsy table and reprimanding the doctor for trying to tamper with her vocal chords.

Three hours they sat there, not speaking, barely moving.

Finally they gave up hope and headed home.

* * *

><p>When Kurt handed Mike his letter, Mike was sure he was mistaken. He and Rachel had barely ever spoken, though he vaguely remembered a time during their week of drunken shenanigans where she had told him he was great. It hurt, now, to think about. He spent most of their time together assuming she thought of him as Tina's boyfriend, or "Other Asian" as Sue had once deemed him. He never thought he'd have his own letter, that he'd have been any kind of impact on her life.<p>

He waited until he was home that afternoon, Tina had barely spoken, and when she did her stutter was back and worse than ever, so she hadn't wanted to spend the day with him. He sat at his kitchen table in the pale January sunlight and opened it warily, unsure as to what it would say.

_Dear Mike,__  
><em>_I'm sorry we never talked much, because you are truly a wonderful person. You've done so much good in our group, rushing to defend any of us-including me, several times-no matter the reason. You are an incredibly talented dancer, and one of the most important parts of our group, whether it gets said aloud often enough or not.__  
><em>_I know that if anyone is upset, you'll be there to comfort them. That's how it's always been. You're a great friend to anyone who needs it, and a great person overall.__  
><em>_Never change anything about yourself Mike Chang.__  
><em>_xoxo, Rachel Berry_

He had folded the letter, placing it in an old notebook in his room, and despite the freezing cold weather outside, gone for a long, long run.

* * *

><p>Mike did a lot of running these days. He didn't care that it was the middle of February, every time he had to sit next to a depressed Blaine on one side, a stuttering Tina on his other, he felt like screaming. But he was Mike Chang, friend to all, not over-dramatic, just kind of there. And so while Blaine tried his best to hide the pain he felt over losing a girl he was in love with around his boyfriend, he didn't feel the need to do so around Mike. Which Mike knew was a good thing, whether he said this aloud or not. Blaine was comfortable enough to mourn, complain and cry to him and know that no matter what was said, it wouldn't go farther than the two of them. And Mike was always sure to never breathe a word of anything Blaine had confided in him.<p>

Tina had taken to eating-a lot. Not that there was anything wrong with a healthy appetite, but this was no longer healthy. And when she had fourths of salad with chicken feet one of the nights they went to dinner with his mom, he became officially worried about her, watching with a sad look on his face when she dashed off to the bathroom immediately after. He had tried to talk to her about it, but she wasn't doing much talking anymore. In fact, Mike seemed to be the only one who did talk anymore between the three of them.

So Tina ate, and Blaine sat in silence or blew up, and Mike-Mike ran.

* * *

><p>Running felt good. His mind was free when he ran, there was no constant loop of sadness that hurt his head, hurt his heart. There was only him and his muscles, how far he could push them. Faster, longer, more, better. Another mile, another street, turn here. Watch for that snow pile, avoid that branch sticking up over there. Running was an action that he could control, something that made him feel almost as good as dancing.<p>

But he didn't really get to dance anymore. They weren't singing upbeat pop songs or classic rock anymore. The most they had done at Regional's was sway in a row, singing back up to Kurt and Santana's rendition of an old Madonna song. And when they won, something none of them were ready for, the stress of everything had nearly caused him to run home from Cincinnati.

And now they were trying to prep for Nationals, Santana's suggestion that they just skip it and not worry about it going ignored. They couldn't just ignore this, it would be like ignoring that Rachel had died in the first place. He figured half the club would have shown up in the choir room every afternoon regardless of whether they won or not, simply for the routine, the safe nature of returning to the room. He expressed that to Blaine one afternoon, receiving a dark glare and something that sounded an awful lot like "I'd rather never go in there again myself," officially giving up on the hopes that time was making things better.

It wasn't.

Time was simply making things much, much worse.

* * *

><p>"Tina, you're not okay," Mike said quietly one day after lunch. She had run to the bathroom, and he followed, feeling like enough was finally enough. It had been two months now, which in the grand scheme of things was nothing, but he didn't want her to keep this up. He didn't want her to have an actual problem, something she'd have to go away to get over, to be carted off to a hospital where she learned how to eat in moderation again, how to not binge and throw up as soon as she could.<p>

"I'm f-f-f-fine," she stuttered out, something else she had gotten into the habit of doing again. Mike was worried it was almost instinct for her, a way to hide. But he didn't want her to hide from him, he wanted to know everything.

"Tina, you're throwing up after you eat," he said, looking at her with nothing but concern, trying to keep his tone from being accusationary. "That's not fine, no matter what you say."

"I'm just not feeling well today," she lied, but he shook his head 'no', pulling her to sit down on the floor with him.

"Please, Tina, talk to me," he was practically begging, just wanting to be able to help one person-the most important person to him. He hated that Rachel's death was destroying everyone else from the inside out, that no one was remotely who they had been anymore. He hated seeing Tina collapsing on herself because she didn't know what else to do.

"It's nothing," she tried to reassure him.

"Why won't you talk to me?" He pleaded, feeling less and less confident that this was the right thing, his voice quiet as he willed her to talk to him.

"You just w-w-won't understand," she responded quietly. Mike was usually a peaceful person, but he was starting to understand why things like this made Blaine want to snap, how infuriating it was that he could understand but no one was giving him a chance to.

"What won't I understand?" He tried instead, but she just scoffed at him and stood up, storming off without another word. He couldn't fix Tina, couldn't fix Blaine, couldn't fix himself. He had never felt so defeated, so completely and totally useless.


	9. Puck

Puck didn't cry. It wasn't in his genetic code or something, he had never really figured out why people did it. Even after Beth was born, and he had to hand over his daughter to Rachel's mom, Quinn had turned to him and cried, ignoring Mercedes attempts at comfort and instead choosing to mourn with Puck. He felt like crying with her would be overkill, so he didn't. And after that first couple of days, Quinn didn't come to him anymore. Wouldn't talk to him, refused to even acknowledge what had happened-that they had a child together, that this child was no longer in their lives, that the past nine months just didn't exist. So he stopped trying, instead focusing on football and glee and other girls, because he wasn't going to waste his time where he wasn't wanted.

All in all, his life seemed to be pretty sweet. He wasn't really worried about school-never had been-and Lauren had even let him get to third base, _finally_, when the call came about Rachel.

And then the world stopped spinning.

Noah Puckerman stopped moving.

* * *

><p>It wasn't like he was exceptionally close to Rachel-aside from their on-againoff-again relationship (which had been off for a long time, Puck trying not to screw up his friendship with Finn after that whole incident their junior year). They had become friends, sort of, and Puck tried to look out for her-she ended up getting in some weird situations, and she was tinier than Hummel's boyfriend, so someone had to defend her and it sure as hell wouldn't be Hudson, regardless of how often Finn tried to declare that he loved her.

They bickered and shot retorts at each other more often than not, Lauren commenting that they fought like brother and sister half the time, but then every once in awhile she'd ask if he would sing with her-which usually ended up in her telling him exactly what he had to do to improve his vocals-and they'd get along reasonably well. They had even sung the duet at sectionals that year, everyone voting against Finn being the male lead and Finn being weirdly forceful about Blaine not getting the part if Rachel was doing the female lead. Puck liked having Rachel around, because it meant they were focused in Glee and she'd push them all to be better. Not that Puck would say these things aloud, because that was just ridiculous, but he felt like she pushed _him _to be a better person.

Besides, if he admitted that to anyone, Lauren would kick his ass.

* * *

><p>The afternoon Kurt passed out the letters, Puck found himself in the graveyard. Rachel didn't have a headstone yet-her dad's had special ordered it and it'd take a couple months before it came in-but he remembered which one was hers regardless. He felt extremely stupid, sitting in the freezing cold and reading a letter from a dead chick, but the whole situation felt stupid. Rachel Berry was dead, one of the few people he hadn't even realized he depended on to be there until she wasn't.<p>

Everyone left him at one point.

Why hadn't he ever figured that out sooner?

He read the words on the paper over and over again until it was too dark to see, and still he sat there, the letter now engraved in his head.

_Dear Noah,__  
><em>_I've had the privilege of watching you grow from a bully, throwing kids like Kurt into the dumpsters and slushies into my face, into a wonderful person, albeit a bit immature at times. I think out of everyone in our group, you've grown the most. You are the first to defend our group now, the first to help whenever someone is incredibly distraught. I think the events of the previous couple years-having a child, going to juvie, being a part of two winning teams-have helped form you into a better person. I'd like to take credit and say I helped, but I'm sure it was more Lauren's doing than anyone else's.__  
><em>_I know you still see yourself as our 'bad boy', but you have a kind heart Noah. Use that more often and stop worrying about your image as much, and anyone would be lucky to call you their friend, their boyfriend.__  
><em>_I love you very much Noah. Don't ever think I didn't care about you.__  
><em>_xoxo, Rachel Berry_

By the time he left that night, it was nearly midnight. The letter was left behind.

* * *

><p>"Puckerman," Lauren snapped one afternoon when they were supposed to be hooking up. He had been distracted, had been distracted a lot lately. "You just tried to kiss my eyeball, so either focus or get off my bed."<p>

"Sorry," Puck mumbled. He didn't know why Rachel dying had fucked with his mojo so bad. It wasn't like he was in love with her like Finn, who barely looked like he was alive himself. And he wasn't even super close to her like Kurt and Blaine, the former looking like he was forcing himself to be happy while the latter looked almost as angry and distraught as Finn. She had been a friend and she was hot and it sucked that she died so young, but there was no reason for him to be so out of sync with himself. "I think I'm just gonna go home," he said after a minute. Lauren didn't stop him-never had, but sometimes he missed having someone need him. He wondered if he had been with Rachel how different things would be. He could lean on her, he knew it, and she would have relied on him.

But he loved Lauren, at least as much as he thought he could, and she loved him-he figured, it wasn't like they said it all that often. Or ever. And even if they didn't love each other, Rachel was gone so there was no point in Puck wondering how things would be.

* * *

><p>Puck went to visit the grave every so often, and after leaving Lauren's he decided that's where he should go. He didn't know exactly why he felt better there, and he realized that if anyone saw him hanging out in a cemetery on a regular basis they'd mock him, but he didn't really care anymore. He sat down, the ground still damp from melting snow, but it was quiet and that was part of the reason he liked it there. His mom and sister were constantly screaming at his house, and Lauren was usually ranting about something, so he didn't really get to experience quiet too many other places. Her headstone had come in a couple weeks ago, the quote on it seemed to haunt him. Rachel's dad said he found it written in one of her notebooks when they were looking for the letters, back at the funeral when they were explaining why there was no headstone yet. They wanted it personalized, which Puck thought made sense. The star in the corner may not have been gold, but it worked for her in a morbid sense.<p>

Puck traced the letters on the stone, taking in their meaning. _Life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end._–_Virginia Woolf_. He thought about the time they did Run, Joey Run and she was dressed like an angel, smirking at the thought that she might be one now. He knew as a couple of Jew's neither of them were really supposed to believe in that kind of thing, but if anyone was an angel now it'd be Rachel.

He didn't talk when he came to visit, that felt stupid-it wasn't like she could hear him. Sometimes he'd talk to her through his thoughts, letting her know about Glee and how everyone still missed her. How he still missed her. No one else ever came as far as he knew; he had never run into anyone at least, and it gave him some sort of peace to let her know about their friends.

Sometimes he brought flowers. He hadn't now, having just come from Laurens, but he usually tried. One time he had even put a gold sticker on the back of the gravestone, aware that most would find it disrespectful but Rachel would have beamed like she used to when she was proud of him. It had fallen off, or someone had found it and taken it off, but it was the thought that counted. "This is so fucked up," he groaned, head in his hands as he usually did at some point or another. It was a vicious cycle-feeling so upset that he had to come see her, see the name Rachel Berry engraved on a tombstone so that it'd sink in all over again, feeling slightly reassured for a little while before he realized what he was doing and it started all over again. He was confused, more than anything. How did she do this? Why? He knew everyone was wondering the same thing, even if they never talked about it. And they never really had. They were all missing her and going through shit in their own fucked up way, and yet no one brought her up unless they had to. So he came to visit her, because while he wasn't going to bring her up, it wasn't like she never existed in his life.

But occasionally he'd laugh, or come up with a sarcastic remark, or threaten to beat the shit out of someone again just because it was almost second nature. Then he'd remember he's not supposed to do these things, he's not supposed to be happy or snarky or violent.

Most of the time, he just felt like there was no way to get over this. That he'd always feel a little lost, a little confused.

That he'd always miss her.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **I don't normally give out author's notes, but I wanted to take a second to thank Gina for giving me the fantastic quote and saying it was her head!canon that it was on Rachel's gravestone, so that I could use it and actually make it canon. Also, a thank you to all of you for reading/reviewing, and I hope I'm not ruining too many of your lives.


	10. Shelby & Will

When Shelby got the call about Rachel, she immediately raced up the stairs and climbed into Beth's crib, holding her adopted daughter. She held her tightly, rocking her back and forth, taking in the light brown hair and hazel eyes and knowing that this girl was not going to end up like Rachel. She wouldn't let her. She would love her and care for her and never, ever abandon her.

She could save Beth.

She couldn't save Rachel.

* * *

><p>Beth was nearly two now, crawling around the house and becoming a general nuisance. Shelby loved her, because she was her daughter, but even though she could never really connect with Rachel she had always held out hopes that once Rachel made it on Broadway-and she believed her real daughter could, believed she had the talent and motivation, the drive and determination that it took-that Rachel would come back and see Shelby again, ask for advice and talk about how wonderful her life was. That in the future, they could have somewhat of a friendship. That was part of the reason Shelby stayed off the scenes after their few encounters, she wanted Rachel to have the space to grow and flourish, knowing that Shelby and her dysfunctional relationship with Rachel would only drag her down, confuse her more.<p>

But then, to hear that she had taken her own life? It seemed so depressingly in character for the girl she had barely gotten to know, that as soon as things got bad and she could see no way out, she'd have to end it in the most dramatic way possible instead of suffer in silence. Shelby wondered if there were signs, if anyone had seen this coming. At the funeral everyone seemed too numb to really talk about it, and Shelby felt like an intruder as it was. She had waved to Noah and Quinn, but Quinn ignored her existence and Noah looked quite like he was going to vomit, so she assumed they didn't want to talk, to hear that their daughter was doing well. That she wouldn't let this happen to their child. So she had stayed quietly off to the side, watching Rachel's friends, her family that she knew, teachers and instructors alike littering the reception hall, everyone dressed in black and talking in somber tones. Shelby didn't stay long, just let Rachel's fathers know about her condolences, letting them share theirs with her, and then she was gone.

She went back to Beth, giving the babysitter way more money than needed for only two hours of work, before sitting with Beth in the dark of her nursery, rocking her back and forth and singing quietly to her through her tears.

* * *

><p>Shelby had kept the name Beth for her adopted daughter at the request of her birth parents. It was a pretty name, and it was the only thing they had asked of her when she took the child. It seemed the least she could do. She had given her the middle name of Rachel without thinking about it, almost as a nod to her birth daughter, an acknowledgment that this may be the first child she was to raise, but this wasn't her first try at motherhood.<p>

The first couple months after it happened, she had taken to calling Beth "Rach" around the house. She was careful to say it quietly, not to let anyone else ever hear her, but it gave her some sense of comfort. She didn't even realize she was doing it at first until she was cheering Beth on as she stood up, grasping the wooden coffee table for support and she yelled "Good job Rachel! I'm so proud of you baby girl!"

When she heard what she had said, she collapsed on the floor in sobs, Beth left confused and crying at seeing her mother so upset.

Shelby started to wonder what she had done, taking on this child.

She wasn't fit to be a mother.

* * *

><p>"How've you been holding up?" Will asked as he walked into the small house. She had kept in contact with him over the years, partially as a way to hear about Rachel and partially to keep in touch with the show choir scene, but it turned out he had been a relatively good friend. Beth cooed from her playpen as he entered the living room, looking around at the mess-there were toys everywhere, Shelby had fallen into some sort of depression that left her listless yet unmotivated to do anything.<p>

"About as well as can be expected," she shrugged as she surveyed her own house as if through his eyes, unsurprised when he had a skeptical look on his face. "I don't really get a right to be sad, do I? I mean, I was the one who chose to leave her. I was the one who terminated our relationship before it could really begin."

"I'm sure that's not how she felt," Will said sympathetically, patting her back.

"Well, I guess now we'll never know."

"She didn't-ah, I mean, the kids all got one and she left one for her dads," Will mumbled, looking down at his hands.

"Left what?" She asked sharply, her hawk like focus on Will now.

"She wrote a bunch of them letters, I figured you were her mom, she might at least have written you one?"

"I'm her mother-was her mother-I was never her mom. We never got close enough to have a light hearted term. But no, her fathers never gave me anything and it's been almost three months now, so I'm sure it would have been given to me by now." Will looked awkward, and even though her voice was faint as she realized that Rachel hadn't cared about her enough to leave her a letter, a last symbolic gesture of solidarity or love or longing to know Shelby cared, she still forced out the next question. "Did you get one?"

"Well," he said, seeming to stumble upon any further words as they halted on his tongue, and she nodded, willing herself not to cry. "I mean, I just, I saw her every day Shelby, I'm sure it wasn't-"

"An oversight? You think maybe she just _forgot _to write me a letter? That makes me feel loads better, thank you William. My own daughter forgot to write me a letter to let me know how she felt, what she was going through, anything at all. Not even a simple 'I love you Shelby, sorry we never got to get close!'" She was close to hysterics again, and Beth seemed to notice as she started making more noise.

"I'm sorry," Will said, but Shelby just shook her head as she darted over to pick up Beth, rocking her gently to comfort her.

"I think maybe you should go," she responded shortly. Will nodded quickly, hesitantly standing in the middle of the room before giving a small wave and heading out the door, leaving Shelby alone with Beth once more.

* * *

><p>Will felt absolutely awful.<p>

He hadn't meant to upset Shelby, had figured she had gotten a letter just like all the rest. He felt like maybe he should have addressed everything that had happened with his students, but they were all still in such various stages of grief that he didn't know where to begin. He tried having Emma come in and talk to them, at first as a group and then one on one. Few of them talked, few of them expressed any sort of emotion or desire to discussion what was going on. He felt bad, wanted to give them some sort of outlet for their pain.

Kurt was the only one of them who really seemed to have a handle on things, but that just worried Will more. Kurt had been through so much, between his mother dying and the bullying and transferring schools. Will was sure Kurt would be one of the walking comatose, would be one of those who barely knew what day of the week it was, much less what month. But Kurt seemed to be doing-okay. He talked and chattered away, was planning their routine for National's with enthusiasm. Kurt, out of the rest, seemed almost normal. Will was wondering how long it would take before Kurt broke down.

Finn still sat in silence, staring at the wall. His dancing, well if it was poor before, it was positively abysmal now. Will had tried to talk to him, to get him to open up but Finn didn't really talk to Will anymore. He supposed part of that was having a father figure around now, and from what he gathered, Mr. Hummel was one of the best men for the job. Besides, if anyone could help Finn with losing love to death, he was sure it was Burt.

Blaine and Quinn tended to sit in silence, though Blaine's was more stormy and dark while Quinn's was lost, scared. He noticed Santana and Brittany sitting beside her every day now, occasionally patting her knee or rubbing her arm. He found the three of them huddled in the hallway one day, it sounded like Quinn was crying and Santana was comforting her. It almost amused Will to note that it would take a death of a friend to cause Santana to be _nice _to her classmates, but then he realized just how much Rachel's death really effected the group.

Mike, for his part, spent most of his time looking worriedly between Blaine and Tina, the latter of whom wasn't looking well. Mike had come to him one day after school, about two months after the funeral, and explained what he thought was going on. Will had tried to get Emma to talk to Tina, to explain the health dangers of bulimia, to get Tina to talk, but it hadn't gone well. He had heard through the rumor mill that Tina had dumped Mike, rather harshly, but that wasn't stopping him from looking out for her.

Artie had barely spoken in weeks, turning down the solo at National's when Will suggested he take it. Mercedes was being more demanding than normal, as if she was embracing Rachel's inner diva and combining it with her own. Most of the time the kids ignored her, no one caring enough to deal with her bullshit. Puck and Lauren seemed to be in their own little worlds, nothing anyone said seemed to register with either of them.

He wanted to fix the kids, get them back to who they were. But Rachel was a big part of who they were, and no matter how much he wanted to, Will couldn't bring Rachel back. So he tried to get them to focus on the good, on National's and winning and everything else, but nothing was working.

* * *

><p>He still had that gold star tie she had given him during that horribly uncomfortable week where she had a crush on him. He wore it sometimes, usually under a cardigan so no one realized what he was wearing. It felt like a small thing to honor her with, the gold star forever reminding him of 'the star you're helping me become' as she had put it. And he had thought he was doing well at teaching her how to balance stardom and friendship, didn't realize that somehow this translated into her never achieving fame in her mind.<p>

He had framed the letter she had written for him and put it on his mantel piece. It was a morose piece, perhaps, but it also made him smile whenever he saw her words, the slanty script he was used to her signing things with and the gold star sticker next to her name.

_Dear Mr. Schuester,  
>I hope you keep trying to help build stars. One day you'll find someone more talented than I, and you'll push her (or, perhaps, him) to reach the goals I couldn't. You're an excellent teacher, when not trying to steal all my solos away from me. But now it's time for you to spread them amongst the rest of the group, and remind them of their individual goals as well as the group goal.<br>Thank you, for teaching me that even stars need friends, need to learn to share the spotlight. Glee taught me a lot, and most of that came from you. Make sure to keep instilling both angles in the future glee club members-the friendship, and the stardom.  
>xoxo, Rachel Berry<em>

It was that, more than any awards or praise from other students, that reassured him that he was right in what he did every day. It was that letter that reminded him why he was doing what he was doing, why he kept with a job with shitty pay and a tyrant who-before a couple months ago, at least-had felt the need to mock his every move.

It was Rachel Berry's death that reminded him why he was a teacher. Of why he went to work every day, trying to help his students. If only he knew how to help them through this.


	11. Tina

Tina didn't _need _help, and she didn't understand why everyone was so convinced that she did. She was perfectly fine, it wasn't like she was in danger of developing a disorder or anything. It wasn't like she was slashing her wrists or fucking everything that moved like Quinn or Santana, or moving zombie-like like Blaine and Finn did. Sometimes she got sad, and then she'd get hungry, a hunger that wouldn't go away no matter how much she ate to get rid of it.

It wasn't her fault that her stomach wasn't telling her it was done.

It wasn't her fault that occasionally she ate so much she felt the need to throw up immediately.

Her parents hadn't really noticed, but she supposed that was because she was good about it. She waited until a wave of sadness hit, until she become so overwhelmed with emotion that she felt like she couldn't go on. Crying wasn't enough anymore, it didn't get rid of the pain anymore. It wasn't _healing _anymore. And while eating wasn't healing either, it was filling, and that was almost as good. So she ate, and she ate, and she ate. And it was working well, at filling that empty sad feeling that threatened to take over her. It wasn't making things perfect, but it was making them better. It almost made her not as sad that Rachel was gone, that they were all graduating, that the life she had spent building for the past three years was suddenly ending.

And then Mike started noticing.

She shouldn't have been surprised, because Mike was-above all things-a great boyfriend. He was observant and kind, sweet and caring. He was a great _person_. And Tina had never felt a greater loathing than when he asked her if she was doing this on purpose, if she was becoming _bulimic_.

"Don't be ridiculous," she had scoffed, trying to keep her anger in check. Bulimia, that was such a disgusting habit. That was reserved for girls who hid jars of vomit in their closet because they didn't have anywhere else to put them, for girls who had drawers full of food to eat when they felt the need to binge. It was reserved for those who felt the need to eat and throw up every day, several times a day. Tina only let herself do this once a week, maybe twice if it was particularly stressful. It wasn't like she _enjoyed _throwing up. It wasn't like this was some sort of addiction, she could stop if she thought it was getting serious.

There was no reason to bring in Mr. Schuester and Miss Pillsbury. What did they know anyways?

* * *

><p>"We've heard some concerns," Miss Pillsbury was saying, but Tina wasn't listening to her. She was staring, dumbfounded at the pamphlets in her hand. <em>So you like throwing up? <em>and _I refuse to stop eating! _glaring up at her in bright letters, doodles of girls in front of mirrors examining themselves on the covers. "And we just want to make sure you're doing okay. I know that losing Rachel has effected some of you quite badly, and we made sure that the students knew I was available to talk to, though few have taken that into consideration."

"I'm fine," Tina said thickly, her mouth barely able to speak. She couldn't _believe _Mike would do this to her, and she knew it was him-no one else was paying enough attention to her to even notice. No one was paying attention to anyone, really, or things wouldn't be playing out like this. Only Rachel could continue to steal the spot light from every other single person in that club when she was dead.

"Are you sure there's nothing-"

"I'm not bulimic," Tina responded quickly, because all she wanted was to get out of this meeting, run outside and get fresh air. She felt claustrophobic, trapped, and Miss Pillsbury just kept talking. Talking about guidance, about serious disorders, using big words Tina recalled from health class a few years ago. But she wasn't bulimic, how many times did she have to say that? How many times would she have to tell Mike, tell Miss Pillsbury, tell anyone who questioned her. _I'm not fucking bulimic_.

"Just know," she was saying now as Tina tuned back into her slightly grating voice, "there are people who are here for you, to listen to anything you have to say."

"Great," Tina replied with a slight sigh. "Can I go now?" Miss Pillsbury looked hesitant but nodded anyways, and Tina dropped the pamphlets back on her desk as she headed for the door, heading for the first exit she could find, desperate for fresh air, for the warm April sun to beat down on her face.

For freedom.

* * *

><p>"Hi," Mike said quietly as he came over and sat next to her in the grass where she was watching the boys track and field team run laps, slightly sweaty and out of breath. Tina didn't reply, didn't trust herself too. She was mad at him-madder than she had ever remembered being at anyone. He had <em>told <em>on her, like they were in kindergarten. "Are you okay?" he asked, and it was so frustrating to hear that over and over, over and over.

"I'm fucking fabulous," she snapped, drawing her legs in to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, trying to hold herself together, trying not to yell at him.

"Tina, what's wrong?" She shook her head, not trusting words to actually escape from her mouth. "Tina, please, just talk to me."

"No," she let out, hoping he would go back to practice, leave her there where she had felt some semblance of air and breathing room for a few minutes.

"Why won't you just talk to me?"

"I don't know, why don't you go tell Mr. Schuester about that next? Set me up with another appointment with the guidance counselor?" she retorted, turning to face him. He looked as if he had been slapped, and she supposed this was the equivalent of it for them. They rarely fought, so well did they work together. But this was sneaky, and it was conniving, and it was _mean_.

"I'm concerned about you-" he tried to say, faltering at her glare.

"I don't care. I am fine, for the last fucking time. Why don't you try and fix Blaine instead of worrying about me?"

"I-I'm not trying to fix you guys, I'm trying to make sure you're okay," Mike said quietly, looking down at his knees as he spoke.

"Well, clearly we're both doing fucking wonderful," Tina swore, and she could just feel everything now, everything all at once. The hurt from losing a friend, the anger from being told on, rejection, pain, madness, depression, heartbreak. She felt so many things and she couldn't tell which one was the most prevalent, which one was fueling the words that were about to come out of her mouth. "We're breaking up."

"What? Tina, no-"

"No," she cut him off, standing up now. "I can't trust you anymore. You went and told on me before talking to me-"

"I tried talking to you Tina, you just kept shutting me down-"

"And now I can't trust you. What else will you go to someone else with before talking to me? And I can't date someone I don't trust."

"Tina, please, don't do this," Mike begged, standing up and grabbing her hand, his eyes pleading with her not to do this.

"It's too late," she replied dryly, surprised at how numb she was to this, how the promise that soon, _soon _she'd be able to do what she wanted in peace again was keeping her calm. "It's already been done."

* * *

><p>She waited until her parents were in bed that night, choosing instead to sit through a quiet dinner and a quiet evening with a grim smile on her face and pretending that everything was 'Fine, mom, I'm fine.' When they asked if Mike would be coming over for dinner, perhaps staying over for American Idol? she broke the news that no, Mike wouldn't be coming over. Never. Her parents had seemed disappointed, they had latched onto Mike in a way that had used to be slightly endearing but now was just even more painful, watching how it almost seemed to break their heart that her relationship was over. "Such a nice boy," she had overheard her mom tell her dad when she went downstairs to watch TV. "Such a shame they broke up," her dad answered, and when they had headed up the stairs Tina instantly raided the cabinets, the fridge, the freezer, piling food up to take with her to the basement where she could be in peace.<p>

She sat down on the floor, spreading her collection around her as she started on chips-salty, so naturally she had to have something to drink with that. She worked her way through her treats, always being cautious enough to leave some so that her parents wouldn't notice half their groceries gone, leaving just enough that it could look like she had been munching occasionally instead of all at once. She had learned to ignore the first burst that told her she was full, _stop eating_, because she wasn't really full. She was so, so empty, an empty shell that needed to be filled with something. It wasn't love, not anymore.

It was funny, how she had taken to dressing like an 'emo' or 'goth' as the kids in school all called her, years before she felt the emotions really associated with it. Sure, she had been sad occasionally, and before Glee she had been lonely. But then she had found friends, found a boyfriend, found a different boyfriend. She had laughed with Rachel as Mercedes tried to convince Kurt that it was _not _acceptable to wear bondage pants to school, not when it caused your boyfriend to turn into a pool of obvious lust. She had confided in Rachel about her relationship with Mike, been confided in about Rachel's relationship with Finn. They weren't best friends, by any means-Rachel seemed to lend that role to Kurt, and occasionally Blaine. But they were _friends_, and Rachel had just _killed herself_.

Rachel, with her almost annoying optimism that they could make it through anything, couldn't make it through high school.

This was when it got to be the worst, the intake slowing down and the bloated feeling taking over, feeling like too much. She knew, now, exactly what had to be done. She had a system.

It was only as she lay on the cool bathroom floor, sweaty and gross from the exertion of making herself throw up, that she realized maybe she _was _in this too deep. Maybe she _did _need help. She fell asleep on the floor, deciding that not today-not yet. A day, a week, a month.

She would end it soon.

Just not yet.

* * *

><p><strong>an: **Oh, hi, another one of these. Sorry my updates have been so sporadic-for one, I'm writing new characters (for me) and it's a little more difficult to get into their heads. Also I work two jobs and that's surprisingly incredibly exhausting? Regardless. I feel bad and I wanted you to know that I don't mean to be so slow with the updates, hopefully it'll only take me a day or two for the next one. You guys are awesome :)


	12. Artie & Mercedes

April rolled in, quiet and unobtrusive, much like Artie himself. Artie had never really been a loud kid, not having too many friends-or any, for that matter-meant it wasn't like he was outspoken or anything. Glee had changed him, for the better he knew, but now that Rachel was gone, everyone was in a deep funk, no one was the same person they had been only four months ago.

Artie had gone back to his old personality, quiet, torn between hoping no one would notice that he wasn't okay and hoping that _someone _would just notice him. He couldn't decide what was worse from day to day, hour to hour, his emotions changing too often to keep track.

He knew that in the realm of the club, he was pretty low on the concern priority list. He and Rachel hadn't been close, each of them in their own separate world. He had admired her, her talent and her leadership. He had been sure that if there was anyone that was going to make it from their group, it'd be her. He had been sure she would go off into the real world, the only one to really achieve her dreams. He had seen her as their leader, almost as an inspiration to keep dreaming himself.

She was a pain in the ass, and she was loud and obnoxious in a way that could occasionally be considered endearing, but she was passionate and ambitious and-while he'd never admit it to anyone-she had been one of his heroes.

And then she was gone.

And Artie hadn't realized how much he had become accustomed to having Rachel around, how much he had _liked _having her around, until she was gone.

* * *

><p>Everyone seemed to have someone else to lean on. Artie had been watching, silently, off on the sides by himself, as they seemed to pair off more and more. Tina and Mike, Brittany and Santana, Kurt and Finn. Blaine had both Kurt and Mike, though even Artie could see that he didn't have either of their full attention. Quinn had been taken in by Brittany and Santana, and Puck and Lauren were rarely seen apart. Mercedes had taken to being the resident diva, something few felt like dealing with and arguing about, but even she seemed to have Lauren to hang around.<p>

Artie was alone.

Alone, alone alone.

It was worse now than it had been before. Before he had been used to the silence, to not having anyone to really hang out with. But now he had formed friendships, had girlfriends, had become used to other peoples presence in his life. After Rachel offed herself, everyone seemed out for themselves. They almost seemed to latch onto one other person, whether they were their significant or not at the time.

But there was an odd man out.

Artie.

He didn't want to call attention to it, was focused on just trying to make it through the school year, make it through the summer, then he'd be gone. Gone at a new school, a college where he'd make new friends, new hobbies. No one would know he was the one who had been ditched by his first girlfriend for a football player, or by his second girlfriend for a cheerleader. He just wanted to get started on a new life, focus on the future instead of dwell in the past like everyone seemed so content to do.

He just wanted to move on, and sometimes he felt like the only one who did.

* * *

><p>Mercedes never understood the concept of hiding your pain, of putting on a mask instead of being real and upfront. Isn't it better to be yourself than to pretend you're happier than you actually are, she always reasoned to herself. But after everything that had happened, she was starting to understand why people hid behind personalities that weren't theirs, or personalities that were more enhanced version of their own.<p>

She knew she had started acting the diva, knew that she was becoming more outspoken and demanding in Rachel's absence. It hadn't started until a few weeks ago, when Lauren made a comment about how quiet it was during meetings now. Mercedes realized she was right-the group rarely talked anymore, barely was singing, and this was their year. They were going to Nationals, even without Rachel, and no one was remotely excited.

She understood their hesitance, understood why they didn't want to go. But as much as it hurt to have glee without Rachel, she knew that they had needed to win at Regionals, if only for a reason to return to each other every afternoon. There might have been a vacant spot that they didn't want to acknowledge, but she wasn't sure any of them would be able to cope with this _without _being around each other.

So she had taken over for Rachel, in a way that Kurt couldn't. Kurt was still trying to keep them motivated, pushing them towards their next challenge, keeping as optimistic as he could when around others. Mercedes knew he wasn't doing as well as he portrayed, but no one was. The only one who seemed to wear their emotions as is was Finn, something no one could deny. She had tried talking to Kurt, seeing how he was, but he was all sunshine and rainbows when he answered her. The mania would die down soon enough, she just wasn't sure when. For the meantime, until Kurt was back in his diva-mode, she would compensate for all three of them. She demanded the solo at National's, even though she had begun to doubt if she was a strong enough vocalist to carry it by herself. She had demanded that she become the leader of their group, not that it was hard to do at this point.

Really, she didn't have to demand anything. By doing anything or saying anything, she was doing more than the rest of the group.

It almost took any satisfaction that she might have gotten from being a diva out of it.

* * *

><p><strong>an**: I know this is an _incredibly _short chapter, at least by my usual standards I have for myself, but it's really hard to get into these characters heads and I wanted to show you a little something from them at the very least. Also, the next few chapters I already have planned out-and have had planned out since the beginning-so it won't take nearly as long for me to update. Thanks for putting up with the wait guys


	13. Blaine II

"Time heals all wounds," Kurt mused aloud from the book he was reading. Blaine scoffed, trying to focus on his AP test prep book in front of him. He felt like living proof that time did _not_ heal all wounds, only made them larger and more frayed along the edges. Kurt should have known this, but Kurt was still in denial-about Rachel's death, that Blaine had pulled significantly away from him in the five months since, that nothing had been healed at all.

It hadn't been intentional, and Blaine had tried to hide it, at first. But now it seemed pointless. No one cared one way or the other, no one noticed. Blaine would muse silently sometimes, late at night when he was having trouble sleeping, about how maybe this was how Rachel felt- invisible in a group that claims to care for each other.

"I think we need to talk," Kurt said quietly, breaking Blaine out of his faux-concentration.

"Hmm?" He asked, flipping a page in the book he was pretending to study from. He expected Kurt to bring up something about Prom, and how this year he was going to wear something even more ridiculous than the kilt he had worn last year. After all, Prom season was in it's frenzy now.

"Blaine," Kurt's voice was hesitant, and this more than anything made Blaine sit up as Kurt closed his book for him. Kurt, even in his denial, was never hesitant. "I just, I think maybe we should break up."

Blaine scoffed, because _really_? _Again_? "Why would we break up?" He finally settled on.

"It's just, you haven't, I haven't-" Kurt stumbled, and Blaine narrowed his eyes.

"What haven't I done?" He asked, aware his tone was accusational. "Been there while you pretend everything is okay? Listened to you talk about how you're _so excited!_ for your new life in Chicago in August?" He barked out a laugh, anger he hadn't realized had been bubbling coming rushing towards the surface. "I've been mourning, which is what you do when someone close to you dies-"

"I know how to mourn," Kurt shot back. "It's not exactly like Rachel is my first brush with death, now is it?"

"You showed more emotion about Pav dying than you've shown towards Rachel, your 'best friend', in the past few months," Blaine retorted, knowing full well that if Kurt hadn't wanted to break up before that he'd certainly want to now.

"Not all of us have to walk around like the entire world has ended," Kurt seethed. "I can't pick up after Finn, watch you act as if you're in love with her too, and fall apart myself. None of us would be able to be put back together. Someone has to be the strong one."

"No, of course, because you have to make sure Finn's okay. Finn definitely needs you more than me, what was I thinking? Why would I ever stand in the way of you and Finn?" Blaine was practically screeching now, aware that said Finn was only in the room next to them, probably listening to their entire fight now.

"Finn's my brother," Kurt reminded him.

"Step brother," Blaine corrected. "Meanwhile, you've basically ignored me since January because _Finn_ is so heart broken, _Finn_ is so upset, _Finn_ isn't handling this well. I've pushed aside _my_ heartache to deal with yours, because I get that this is hard for you. But most of the time you act like she didn't even exist, like she wasn't even important! So what's the point in helping you if you're not even going to deal with it? Why shouldn't I focus on my own pain instead?"

"The way I choose to handle Rachel's-incident, that's no ones choice but my own," Kurt said, trying to keep his voice steady.

"You know what? You're right. Consider us broken up then," Blaine sneered, grabbing his bag and storming out of the house, not realizing until he was halfway to his own that this left him completely alone.

* * *

><p>Blaine was glad it was a Friday night, he had an excuse to avoid the world for a couple days. He tried distracting himself with homework, video games, even playing the piano in the living room. He saw his mom's sideways glances, overheard her telling his dad that she thought he had broken up with Kurt, listened to his fathers snide comments that maybe the 'gay phase' had finally lifted as he lay on his bedroom floor. Nothing worked.<p>

Nothing helped.

He had lost Rachel, completely with no hopes of her ever coming back. He had pushed Kurt until he had lost him too, and though Kurt was technically still _there_, there was no hope of Kurt ever coming back either.

He debated calling Mike, seeing how Mike had gotten through this with Tina, when he remembered he hadn't. Mike was still heartbroken, and Tina was still not talking to him. He put his phone back down, kicking it under the bed in the process. He'd probably regret that action come Sunday night when he had to set an alarm and it was dead and he couldn't find it, but for now he didn't want to deal with anyone.

* * *

><p>Monday came much too soon, met with upset Kurt who wouldn't look at him (Blaine decided to take the high road and not remind him that it was <em>Kurt<em> who wanted to break up with _Blaine_) and a glaring Mercedes, who seemed to be falling back into place as Kurt's best friend.

Mike let him to his thoughts at lunch, though Blaine wasn't sure if that was better or worse.

"It'll get better, right?" Blaine finally asked as they headed out of the cafeteria, and Mike shrugged.

"Did it get better with Rachel?" Mike asked, and Blaine's heart sank, not knowing how to handle two very different heart aches at once.

* * *

><p>"Nationals are only a week away guys!" Mr. Schuester announced that afternoon in Glee. Very few looked excited at the prospect, Blaine had completely forgotten about it, forgot there was a reason they still met up every afternoon and ran through songs and choreography.<p>

"But, wait," Quinn spoke, and it was so rare to hear her these days that everyone turned to look at her. "Prom is next weekend."

"Well unless you'd rather go to _Prom_ than National's, I guess you'll have to miss it," Finn sneered from his spot.

"Of course not," she mumbled, sitting back in her seat as Brittany squeezed her arm in solidarity, Santana shooting lasers at Finn.

"Well, we're a lot better rehearsed this time around," Mr. Schuester went on, ignoring the minor interruption. "And since I don't feel there'll be any, um, surprises this year, I think we have a real shot."

"You mean since we have our song more than 2 hours in advance and Finn won't make out with anyone on stage?" Santana quipped, and now Finn was glaring. Blaine sighed heavily in his spot, wondering once again why he stayed in this club. Why he didn't transfer back to Dalton.

"Can we all just focus?" He snapped, glaring at both Finn and Santana.

"Er, thank you. Blaine has a point. We need to focus on the task at hand. Just because we're better prepared this year doesn't mean that we're not still the underdogs. Vocal Adrenaline hasn't taken any breaks since they won their Regional's, and they haven't suffered a loss like we have. We're still good-great, even- but we do have to make up for losing Rachel," he rambled, heading towards the white board.

Blaine tuned him out as he went over the importance of teamwork, longing for the day, month, school year to be over. He wanted out of Lima, out of Ohio. He was glad, more now than ever, of his impulsive decision to apply to NYU back when he, Rachel and Kurt were planning their escape to New York. Kurt might have backed out, turning down a generous scholarship to Parsons to attend some school in Chicago, but Blaine couldn't not go to NYU.

_Only a few more months_, he thought as they were all dismissed, heading for his locker quickly, the hurt and sadness he had grown so used to being slightly out placed by the yearning for a new life.

For a new start.


	14. Kurt II

Kurt avoided Blaine as much as he could. He could see that Blaine was mad, and a part of him understood-they had, after all, been dating for over a year. It might have hurt more if Blaine _wasn't_ upset. But then the voice that told him to break up with Blaine in the first place spoke up, the one that reasoned that Blaine hadn't been as invested in their relationship as Kurt was anymore. That Blaine was a little too heartbroken over Rachel's death to fully be in love with Kurt, and Kurt didn't need that hanging over him.

But Blaine's words had hit close to a part of him that Kurt wasn't ready to acknowledge. How he had spent more time mourning over Pavarotti the previous year than he had been spending mourning Rachel, that he had been pretending she had never existed. He hadn't been doing this intentionally, had been so focused on keeping Finn from doing something stupid that he had barely noticed. But he realized, as he lay on the rug in Finn's room while Finn lay staring at the ceiling, as was their customary evenings nowadays, that this is what he had been doing. When he was younger, and his mom died, it was natural to cry and mourn and deal with it as any other kid had. But he was older now, and mourning like that seemed like it wasn't enough.

He missed Rachel, there was no doubt about that. But he didn't have to cry all the time to show that. He showed that by moving on with his life, by making sure the New Directions were still focused on the goal of winning National's, by demanding that they had performed _Don't Cry For Me _back at Regional's. By helping Finn every day.

But the truth was, he hadn't moved on.

He just wasn't going to accept that.

* * *

><p>Flying to New York was a lot more nerve-wracking than it had been the previous year, with the group in a far more mellow mood. No one was messing around, Puck wasn't challenging Mike to rap offs while they tried to put together a song, Santana and Brittany weren't giggling together in their seats. For the most part, everyone slept. Kurt watched the world fly by beneath him, Finn's head resting on his shoulder as he napped.<p>

* * *

><p>"I know last year you all went a little crazy," Mr. Schuester said as they all gathered in the girls hotel room. "But this year we're at least prepared enough that I think you can have this night off to go do whatever it is you want. Just, stay safe." The room quietly stood up, a few of the girls grabbing their bags as they headed towards the door. Kurt hesitated, not sure exactly where he should go. He felt vaguely uncomfortable being in New York now, without Rachel on his side. It was supposed to be the two of them here, in Manhattan. They were supposed to be moving there in only a couple months.<p>

But instead he was running off to Chicago, putting distance between him and the city he had fallen in love with. Because even being there, in a different hotel on the opposite side of Manhattan, reminded him too much of _her_.

* * *

><p>He hadn't really made a plan when he got on the subway. He had just gotten on different trains, riding until he felt he should get off. When he climbed up the stairs outside of Central Park, he shouldn't have been surprised. <em>Of course<em> he ended up near Tiffany's, where he had dragged her to for breakfast. He walked in the direction, past the Plaza and it's fountain where people were mingling about. He stood across the street from the building, just looking at it. He could practically see them there, laughing as they talked about their future. Should she choose love or career? Should she bring Finn along? Blaine had agreed to come. But that was a year ago, and now Blaine was the only one of the four headed to New York, Finn going to Ohio State. And Rachel, well Rachel would never see her dreams of being on Broadway come true, and that broke Kurt's heart into a thousand more pieces than he thought was possible.

He gulped back a rush of tears, willing them to stay at bay as he crossed the street, walking up to Tiffany's and leaning against it. He knew where his next stop would be, knew it even if he didn't want to vocalize it, starting to walk in the direction he had only been in once before. It would have been quicker to take the subway or find a bus, but this wasn't about easy. This was about facing what he had been avoiding for so long, for finally letting out everything he had been hiding and trying to avoid.

He passed by the H&M on the corner of 5th and W51st, turning the street and letting the memory of Rachel going "Oh, we should stop there on our way back," fill his mind. He wasn't going to block it out, not today. He probably looked like a mess, half crying as he strode down the busy streets, focused solely on his end destination.

He thought about how different this trip would be if she was there, if they would make the trek together again. She had promised that they'd go inside the Plaza this year if they made it to National's, and now he hadn't even wanted to go near it, much less inside the elegant hotel. He wondered if they would have tried to crash a different theater, or if they would have stuck with the Gershwin. If they would have gotten the opportunity to sing again, what other song they could have possibly done.

He crossed Broadway, less than a block away from the infamous theater. It was still relatively quiet in the area, no one around for the show that was sure to be performed that night. He glanced around before darting inside, feeling much more reckless than he did before. When he was with Rachel, it was fun, an opportunity, just hoping they'd have a few minutes so that he could help her realize that _this _was where she belonged. Finn or no Finn, she needed to be on that stage.

He didn't run into any security as he walked into the actual theater, choosing a seat somewhere in the middle as he let the memories wash over him, remembering how he and Rachel had chosen perhaps the realest song to apply to their friendship to sing. How it had been three years ago that he found her obnoxious, bossy, too talented for her own good. They had been rivals in a way, because they were the best-and the best don't usually get along. "It gets lonely at the top," Rachel had confided in him once, and he nodded, understanding.

"That's why we have each other," he had reassured her, and he felt the tears well up as he thought about her, thought about all that time they spent being enemies purely because it was what was expected of them. Looking back, she had been there for him all along, even if it was in her own Rachel Berry way. She had been a great person, something that few had taken the time to see. She was harsh and brash on the surface, but he couldn't blame her. You didn't get the kind of abuse and bullying they had both endured without coming off as a bitch. But there was so much more to her, so much more that she had to offer, and so few had seen it.

The tears were coming down now, hard, and it felt like he was forced to sit through some sort of horrible home movie of his own life. The time he had convinced her to dress up like Sandy at the end of Grease because he was petty and jealous that she could get Finn and he couldn't, the time he told her that even _she _was replaceable. He hadn't meant it, of course, and hoped when he told her that she too was one in a million like Barbra that it replaced any memory of his earlier cruelty, but was sure it hadn't. He, of all people, knew how the criticism could stay with you far longer than the compliments.

He remembered how she was the one who started the campaign against Karofsky in the first place, before they even knew the extent of what had happened. How she had tried to defend him in the only way she could-by getting together a group that could actually take him on. He had never told her how much he appreciated it, how much he appreciated that even though their relationship at the time had been rocky she still tried her best to look out for him. She was doing that for everyone, even if they ignored it. It depressed him to think that it took the whole Karofsky situation and transferring to a different school for him and Rachel to become real friends, genuine friends. How Rachel, so hell bent on winning everything for herself, supported him and the Warblers without question when they were up against one another. How proud he had been when she stepped on that stage and belted out a song she had written, a song that expressed everything she could never really say to anyone.

He was bawling now, unable to keep out all the pain he had been doing so well at keeping locked up. He wanted her to be with him, needed her to be there to support his decision to go to Chicago, to back away because it was just too hard for him to be in the city. But he knew she wouldn't have, would have talked him up until he realized what a stupid idea it was. And he knew it was a stupid idea, he didn't even _like _Chicago, but he couldn't be in Manhattan if this was what was going to happen every time he was there. He could hear her voice, stern as she told him to "Suck it up, New York City was made for us."

It didn't change anything, wouldn't change anything.

He missed her so damn much, and as he tried to compose himself he knew the only thing that _had_ changed was that he was willing to admit it and ready to deal with it now.


	15. Finn II

Finn hadn't wanted to go to New York. He had wanted to sit home and do nothing, much like he had been doing for the past five months. But Kurt wouldn't allow it-actually straight up told Finn that it wasn't allowed. "We need you for National's Finn," he had reprimanded from his spot on the floor when Finn had spoken his desire to skip out. They didn't usually talk when Kurt lay there, and Finn supposed had things been different he would have appreciated how Kurt was looking out for him. But things weren't different, so instead Finn continued to sulk and mourn and be pissed off at _everything_.

"We don't need me for National's," Finn had mumbled, but Kurt wasn't listening. They fell back into silence, and three weeks later Finn found himself free to roam around a city he had never quite felt comfortable in. He didn't know where to go, didn't really have anyone to go with him. He wandered around Central Park, finding some benches and sitting down, staring at the bridge where he had once met Rachel before taking her out on a the quintessential romantic comedy New York City style date. The day before they got together again. For the last time. Their on again/off again relationship never would be on again, because he had failed. Because he had let her down. Because he had hurt her so much that she had done the most dramatic thing she could think of, and taken her own life.

* * *

><p>"We're up next," Santana announced needlessly as they all sat in the luxuriously furnished green room before their performance. Kurt had divided up their parts for them when no one had jumped at the offer right away for solos and leads in the duet, and now Mercedes was trying to warm up in the corner for her duet with Puck. She had originally had the solo, demanded it actually, but when Kurt caught Finn singing in his room one day, he switched it up. Mercedes seemed annoyed at first, but Finn had a feeling Kurt talked to her into giving him the solo.<p>

Not that he particularly wanted it. He wasn't the best singer, and he had barely been singing at Glee as it was. But Kurt usually got what he wanted, and this was no exception. So now Finn had to deal with frayed nerves that were worse than normal, and all he wanted was for Rachel to squeeze his hand, tell him that he'd do a great job, kiss his cheek and thank him for singing to her in such a public display, say how much it meant to her that he cared so much.

But she wasn't there, so he had to make due with mentally preparing himself instead.

* * *

><p>"Nervous?" Kurt asked from next to him, and Finn nodded vaguely. He resented listening to the Carole King CD he had found in a desk drawer weeks ago now, resented himself for putting it on and listening to it-for singing along to words he only half knew from Rachel's countless <em>Tapestry<em> kicks. He resented that Kurt had been in the house-he was supposed to have been at the garage, helping out Burt for the afternoon. Finn was supposed to be home alone, to mourn quietly in his own little way.

But then Kurt was in his doorway, singing along to the song better than Finn could ever hope to, and somehow this led to Finn being chosen to sing _So Far Away_. "She would have loved it," Kurt had promised, but Finn just snorted. She would have wanted to sing it, or had Santana sing it-Santana's voice was much more suitable for the song.

But now they were being announced. "New Directions" the announcer called, and Kurt was pushing Finn onto the middle of the stage, falling behind him with the rest of the guys as the girls came from the opposite side. They had their duet first, then the solo, so Finn had a few minutes to remain before he was alone, on a brightly lit stage, in front of thousands of people, singing to his dead ex-girlfriend.

He moved silently in the background, mouthing the words to a song he was only half aware of, feeling the nerves take over more than anything. What would happen if he threw up? Would someone take his place? Kurt could, Kurt knew all the words. Hell, even Quinn could if she managed to make it through the song without crying.

_Crying_, Finn thought, momentarily freezing before realizing he was on a stage, falling a step behind everyone as he tried to catch up. That was something he hadn't thought of, what if he started crying in the middle of the song?

"I cry every time I sing a solo," he heard in her voice, crisp as if she was standing next to him talking. It was true, she did cry every time she sang a solo, but that was from raw emotion, from how powerful the songs moved her. He never felt that way when he sang solos, never was really emotionally attached to singing like she was. He loved it-or he had, at least, before everything happened. But he was never overcome with such a strong emotion that it brought tears to his eyes.

Not like it did for her.

_She should be here performing_, he thought morosely, hands going in the air as Mercedes wailed on the last note, hitting everything perfectly. The crowd all stood up, cheering loudly-they had somehow managed to nail it, somehow managed to win them over, and Finn realized he should be happy, but he wasn't. And as they rest of the club started off the stage, leaving Finn alone and exposed, he fought the urge to run off with them.

The song started off slow, and Finn took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he held the mic up, practically whispering the first couple of lines. He wanted to smile at how the lyrics almost worked for them-how she was far away from him now, how he just wanted to spend his life holding her, being close to her, but she was gone now.

His voice grew reasonably stronger, it was easier with his eyes closed, he could pretend he was at home, in the bathroom singing to the mirror like Kurt made him do for practice. He could pretend that Rachel was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, humming along as she prodded him along, making mental notes to tell him how to improve his performance, to pretend that Kurt was scoffing in the doorway and judging every error he ever made. He felt confident enough to open his eyes, the vision of his bathroom falling away, Rachel with it, as he caught Kurt's eye from off stage, a small smile on his brothers face. _You can do this_, Finn reminded himself, pulling his way through the final chorus.

When it was over, _finally over_, he got a standing ovation, not that he noticed-he ran off the stage immediately, dropping the mic on the ground as he pulled Kurt to him in a deep hug, letting out the tears he had been fighting off for so, so long.

* * *

><p>When they landed in fourteenth, none of them were disappointed. They hadn't planned on even making it to National's-winning seemed like a preposterous idea without Rachel. If they couldn't win <em>with <em>her, there was no way they would win without her. But Finn didn't care about that, hadn't cared about that in so long. Kurt and Puck had to drag him to the men's room down the hall, Puck standing awkwardly above them as Kurt held onto Finn, once again being the rock between them as Finn let out all the feelings he hadn't let himself feel for five months. He didn't even realize where they were until Mike had come in, saying that Mr. Schuester needed them again.

It wasn't going to fix everything, he knew. One breakdown wasn't going to make everything sunshine and rainbows once more. But it was progress, and Kurt said that was all that mattered. "You don't have to forget her," Kurt promised as Finn sobbed, loud and messy and surely getting snot all over Kurt's outfit. "But it's time to move on and let her go. It's time for all of us to do that."

Finn hated that Kurt was right, wanted him to be wrong on every level. But he knew that ultimately, it was time. National's were over, Glee was over, graduation was looming overhead. Soon they'd all be off in different schools, different colleges, and Rachel-well, Rachel would be more of a memory than she was already.

* * *

><p>Finn was exhausted. He blamed the fatigue on flying, on losing National's, but he was sure Burt and his mom saw through it, saw how they glanced at Kurt for verification before giving him a hug and letting him crawl upstairs to his room. He wanted nothing more than to fall on his bed, fall into the coma like state he preferred to stay in almost every night. He saw Kurt poke his head in, saying good night quickly before walking down the hall, and Finn realized that Kurt seemed different, didn't seem as weighed down. He wondered for a second if Kurt was letting go of Rachel too, if he was finally putting her in the past, but then his heart hurt even more and he pushed the thoughts away.<p>

He dumped his bag on the bed, trying to sort it and put everything away so his mom could do his laundry for him the next day before school on Monday, throwing dirty clothes into the laundry basket by his closet before dumping the rest of it-his phone cord, iPod and chargers-all clattering on his desk. He stared at the pile before sighing and putting it all away, knowing his mom would just ask him to do it the next day. "I don't know how you can sleep in a mess Finn," she would tell him as she organized his stuff while he lay in bed. "All that clutter makes my brain run forever."

He barely paid attention as he shoved things in drawers, focusing on getting his room seemingly clean so he could crawl into bed and not move until Monday morning, until an envelope caught his attention.

He hadn't thought of the letter in awhile, though that might have been because he hid it from himself. He hadn't brought himself to open it before, trying so hard to dull any emotion besides numb and he knew that would backfire if he opened the envelope. He thought about getting Kurt, having Kurt there on his side like he had been so much-but he knew deep down that he had to do this himself. He knew it was time, knew that in order to really move on he was going to have to hear her last words-as potentially mean and heartbreaking as they were.

He took a deep breath, looking around his room before sitting on the floor, ripping the envelope unceremoniously, letting the discarded paper fall to the floor as he brought the letter to his face, reading her careful script slowly.

_My dearest Finn, _

_Do you remember that time when you tricked me into coming back to the Glee club? When I was staring in Cabaret-a show that wouldn't go on after I quit and moved back to the Glee club, exclusively for you-and before the Quinn pregnancy scandal erupted? I remember, distinctively, telling you that my dreams were bigger than you. And for the longest time, I believed myself. _

_My dreams were bigger than you. They included being on Broadway, of eventually being swept away by the glamour of Hollywood when they realized what a star I could be. It included a life of fame, of being appreciated for my talent and my dedication, my hard work and ferocity. _

_But those were my career oriented dreams, and while they were the most important thing to me, I realized over the past couple years that I could have more than one dream. I could dream that I had someone sitting in the audience when I won a Tony for my outstanding performance in a lead role. I could dream that after spending hours in the studio going over dance moves for a performance, I could go home to someone having surprised me with a wonderful meal. I could dream that the person could very well be the one I met in high school, that our love was true in a way that very few are, and that we managed to fight any and all odds-that the person I envisioned sharing my life in the future was you. _

_So really, the day I told you that my dreams were bigger than you, I lied. My dreams were big-too big, I see now-but they also included you. And for awhile, I was so sure I was going to get everything I had ever wanted. I could have the boy, I could have the career, I could have the city, I could have all I ever wanted and more. But then I realized, with childish naivety, that I wasn't as talented as I thought I was. Or, I was as talented as I believed, but there were others with more talent. I was a big fish in a small pond, and while Kurt assured me that I would still make it, my thoughts of doubt were starting to worm their way in. If I was so destined to be a star, how come we never made it past Regional's our sophomore year? How come we lost at National's last year? How come I had never even thought to join the drama club after my one rebellious act of anger sophomore year? _

_I was woefully underprepared. It was incredibly apparent to me that my dreams, the dream of seeing 'Rachel Berry' on a marquee on Broadway, was never going to happen now. And at the same time that _

_Two dreams shattered, within a week. _

_I don't blame you for ending things, and you're a small part of what's happening. I don't want you to live with guilt the rest of your life Finn, as I'm sure you're already doing. I couldn't spend my life being average, and that more than anything is what's luring me to the idea of this tragic end. I can not be average. And if the only way to avoid that is death, then I have accepted this. I hope that one day, you too can accept that I did this for a valid reason. _

_I've loved you for so long Finn Hudson. I see great things for your future, no matter where it goes and who you end up with. _

_Love, forever and always,_

_Rachel Berry_

Finn folded the letter once more, letting the tears fall again. Getting over her was going to be harder than he ever imagined.


	16. Epilogue

"And the winner is…" the small blonde, popular from some new hit show on Fox, announced as she pulled the name from the envelope. "Jesse St. James!"

The audience clapped as a smile burst out on his face, his heart thumping as he tried to remember to breath. It had been a long and difficult journey to this point, but one he wouldn't have changed-give or take one or two events. But he was here, walking across the stage to receive an _Emmy _for his character, his first award and it was a huge one. He was amazed his legs didn't turn to jelly as he made his way onto the stage, crossing it swiftly and thanking the girl as he turned to face the audience, his acceptance speech having been prepared for over ten years now.

"This one is for you Rachel Berry," he said with a fond smile as he remembered the petite brunette he had been sure he'd end up with one day. "You're still my number one star." With that, he walked off the stage, sure the reporters would start investigating exactly who Rachel was, sure that there'd be some sort of scandal that he hadn't thanked his girlfriend, that he was cheating or something-but he had decided long ago that Rachel deserved this more than anyone.

Even more than him.

* * *

><p>"Are you nervous?" Kurt asked, straightening Finn's tie for the seventh time as Finn let out a hearty laugh.<p>

"Dude, do you know how many times you've asked me that in our lives?" Finn grinned, wrapping his brother in a hug.

"Well, I have to say, I never thought I'd live to see this day," Kurt replied snidely. "The great Finn Hudson getting _married_?"

"Har-de-har-har," Finn replied, checking his reflection in the mirror once more. "It's not like I'm 23 anymore dude."

"You may not be physically, but your vocabulary seems to negate that," Kurt retorted as he examined his own tie. "Now, where the hell is Puckerman?"

"Right here!" he called out as he walked into the room where the groomsmen were supposed to be getting ready. "And I told you, it's _Noah_ now." Kurt fought the urge to roll his eyes as he nodded.

"My deepest apology, _Noah_," he emphasized, and the group started cackling.

"I'm pretty sure you'll always be Puck to us dude," Finn shrugged, fiddling with his tie, giving a sheepish grin at Puck's eyebrow raised directed towards us.

"True, there was only ever one of us that called me Noah back then." They fell silent, letting that seep in momentarily. It was a long time since anyone brought up Rachel, a subject almost too taboo for anyone to breach. And while he may have been marrying Stacy-a beautiful girl he had met in college but didn't start dating until a couple years ago-he would never really forget Rachel. The gold star on his tie clip was there as a reminder for the girl he once thought he would one day marry, a gift from Stacy herself, who had been surprisingly wonderful about the whole thing. He was lucky to have found her, and he knew it, which is why he had proposed after only a year.

"Well, the bride won't like to be kept waiting. Are we almost ready?" Kurt asked after a moment of silence, the three of them surely lost in their own memory of the girl who wouldn't attend the wedding.

"Ready as ever," Finn replied with a grin.

"Let's do this!" Puck cried, running out of the room as Kurt and Finn laughed and followed.

* * *

><p>Blaine hummed quietly to himself as he waited for his coffee. He hated Starbucks, but it was the closest to his job-not that there weren't 17 other coffee shops on the street, living in New York City pretty much guaranteed that he'd never go coffee-less. He checked his phone, making sure he didn't have any messages from the office that he might have missed. Being a 28 year old big shot at a small advertising firm wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but it paid the bills and kept him busy.<p>

The date caught his eye, _January 13__th_, and his heart stopped for a second, like it always did on this date. He missed Rachel, missed her more than he'd ever admit to anyone. He had, by all appearances, moved on. He had gone to college, had been in several relationships-mostly with guys, because it was easier. Any relationships with girls were kept quiet, indiscretions at most. He tried not to think about those though, tried not to see the same things they all had in common-short little brunettes with deep brown eyes, too talented and assertive for their own good.

"Blaine?" the barista called, and he made his way through the crowd to grab his drink.

"Thanks," he said with a small smile, taking the hot cup before trying to find a spot to sit. He had time to kill, which almost always turned into him showing up for late work, but today he figured he had the excuse of 'it's the ten year anniversary of my friends death' to work for him. He found a small table, towards the back, and sat down, turning his back on the rest of the room as he tried to sort through his thoughts.

He was doing relatively well, on days when he didn't think about it. He had gone through the five stages of grief, and accepted that she was gone and never coming back. What was harder to accept, even still, was the feeling that they never had a chance at something that could have been great, that he had let her slip right between his fingers without ever wanting too.

"Excuse me," a soft voice said, distracting him from his thoughts. "Is it okay if I sit here? Everywhere else is full." He looked up to see a woman around his age, with brown shoulder length hair and eyes that he swore were the same color as chocolate.

"Of course," he said with a charming smile, aware in the back of his mind what was going to happen. _Here we go again_.

* * *

><p>Quinn nervously stepped into the ballroom that had been rented out for their reunion-their ten year high school reunion. She was amazed they had made it this far, amazed they had all made it past graduation. She spotted Finn, arm wrapped around a blonde as he talked animatedly to what looked like Mike Chang, Tina walking up to them and holding out a cup for Mike.<p>

She briefly debated running back out, she wasn't even sure why she had come in the first place. She had barely come to Ohio since college graduation six years ago, much preferring her quiet life in Texas to all the memories that came with Ohio, Lima specifically. When she turned around to see Mr. Schuester talking to Ms. Corcoran, she was definitely on the verge of slipping back out, convinced no one had seen her yet.

"Fabray!" Santana Lopez's voice called out as she crossed the room to greet her old friend, Brittany trailing quietly behind her. "We were wondering if you were going to show up."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't sure but-"

"Come, tell us all about-where is it? Texas?" Santana asked, linking arms with the two blondes.

"Yeah," Quinn said, offering a small smile. Brittany grinned at her, and Quinn visibly relaxed. She could manage this one evening, she had been doing well in moving on with her life.

She spent the night listening about how Brittany had convinced Santana to move to New York with her, "Upstate though, the city is too hectic," Brittany confided as Santana endearingly rolled her eyes, showing off her own wedding ring as Brittany yelled about hers. They listened as she told about her life in Texas, how she was married now to a lawyer, how she was expecting a child-a child she was excited about instead of dreading.

"Things have a way of coming full circle," Brittany mused, and even though Santana shot her a confused look, Quinn kind of knew what she meant. So much had changed since high school, and yet so much was the same.

* * *

><p>Kurt stood on the stage, coughing into the microphone to gather everyone's attention. He looked out in the crowd, at the people who had made him who he was in a span of only three years and over the next ten continued to shape him. He saw his step brother and his wife, his ex boyfriend with his girlfriend, the 'Unholy Trinity', the 'Asians', Mercedes and her husband, so many familiar faces that for a second he was sure it was a flashback to junior prom, to winning prom queen, before Finn yelled 'Get on with it!' and he remembered what he was doing.<p>

"Right, sorry," Kurt laughed and the crowd just kind of shuffled, looking around as if they were waiting for him to get on with it. "I just wanted to give a quick speech, and then I'll let you get on with your night." He cleared his throat, steadying himself on the stage before starting the speech he had been planning for months now. "I know that in the past ten years, we've loved, lost, found, hurt, and raged. We've moved and disappeared and lost contact and reacquainted. We've been through a lot, and we've grown up." He cleared his throat again, smirking a little at Finn quoting along with him in the crowd.

"Ten years ago, we lost a member of our class before we even made it to graduation. Rachel Barbra Berry was, what we all thought, destined to go farther than anyone else in the McKinley Class of 2012. We were sure that she would shine above the best and the brightest, sure that she would be the one who everyone would scramble to brag about how they knew her. Ten years ago, she took her own life, and it altered so many others and left a wake of loss and devastation that McKinley is rarely used to dealing with. She left behind a boyfriend, a best friend, a mentor, a group that thrived purely on her talent, on her personality. It's been ten years, and she still comes to mind anytime I watch _Funny Girl_, or anytime someone mentions Barbra Streisand-which, you'd be surprised to learn, happens a lot in the world of fashion." He paused for the few chuckles that went through the crowd before taking another deep breath, remembering to keep steady.

"Rachel Berry used gold stars as a metaphor for the star she'd one day be. And while her life ended, tragic at 18 instead of in old age as a retired Broadway star, she'll always be a star to those she loved, to those who knew and cared for her. She'll always be someone I brag about, even if she never made it to her dreams. I count Rachel as a graduating member of 2012, simply because it seems like a shame not to." He raised his glass, waiting for others in the room to do the same. He saw Finn raise his, Blaine following shortly after, Quinn and Santana raising them high above their heads as Mike and Tina joined in, the rest of the class doing so relatively reluctantly. "To Rachel Berry," he finished, taking a sip of his drink.

He watched as everyone else did the same, "To Rachel Berry," surrounding the rooms, and thought of how pleased she'd be that she was well known enough to be remembered ten years later. _To Rachel Berry indeed_, he thought as he moved back into the crowd, knowing that there was no amount of years that could pass where he'd ever forget the girl who once shined brighter than any other star ever could.


End file.
